Aftermath
by unlikelyRLshipper
Summary: Shane Casey took Danny's badge - but why? A speculation story based on the upcoming return of Shane Casey. My first multi-chapter story! *STORY NOW COMPLETE*
1. Chapter 1

**Once again, I must begin by apologizing for going dark for about the past month and a half. This story has been on my mind since 6.13 aired, but this is the first opportunity I've had to write it out. Not to make excuses, but schoolwork + muse that alternates between beating me over the head with an idea and running away for extended periods of time + having to translate quick bulletpoint notes into a fully fleshed-out story = bad combination for fics coming out quickly.**

**Moving on: this one is a bit of speculation based on the end of 6.13 and the fingerprints belonging to one Shane Casey that were on Danny's dog tags (seriously, who saw that one coming????!!!!!) This story is actually my first foray into a multi-chapter fic and is a bit of a departure from my usually fluffy stories, so be warned!!!!!!**

**Enjoy?**

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****Aftermath**

"What the hell were you thinking Danny? Your badge has been missing for close to a month now, and you never told me? And then you find out that Shane Casey's fingerprints were on your dog tags that were taken at the same time? You tell me how I'm supposed to react to that!!"

Danny had been called into Mac's office five minutes ago, and as he approached his boss's office, he could tell that he was angry. He quickly thought of what he could have done to piss off Mac so badly, and then he caught sight of Lindsay, sitting hunched over on the couch in Mac's office.

Danny knew exactly what was going on.

"Look Mac, I was gonna tell you, but…"

"What, when you finally found your badge, or were you going to wait until Casey handed it back to you personally? Right now, I don't really care about what you intended to do Danny, because you didn't do it. I'm confining you to the lab until we figure out what the hell is going on here. Give me your gun."

Danny shot a quick glance at Lindsay, who was avoiding her husband's gaze, before taking his holster and gun off his belt and dropping it on Mac's desk. Without a second glance to either his wife or his boss, Danny stormed back to the office he shared with Lindsay.

Pacing around the room in an attempt to calm himself down, though it didn't seem to be working as his fists continued to clench and unclench in quick succession, he saw Lindsay sheepishly approaching the office. He continued to pace as she stepped into the office and stood in front of the door, watching him move back and forth across the small floor like a caged animal. She dared to speak first.

"Danny, something needed to be said. It's been nearly a month, and there's no way to know what Shane Casey is gonna do. We need help."

"_I_ had this covered, _I_ was handling it all by myself. You had no right to say anything to Mac!" Danny finally stopped and faced Lindsay, and he watched as her face set with anger and determination.

"What is this "_I"_ crap? I did have a right to say something to Mac, because we're married and this isn't just about you anymore, or me for that matter. Don't you even remember what happened the last time Shane Casey was around here, he framed Sheldon for murder, who knows what he'll do next!"

Uninterested in having this argument anymore because he couldn't get past the betrayal he felt, Danny turned his back to Lindsay and coldly told her, "Go home Lindsay. I'll see you and Lucy at home after my shift is done in a couple of hours."

Though they were still across the room from one another, Lindsay felt as though she had been slapped across the face by Danny's words. She left as quickly as possible, not wanting Danny to see the tears that had sprung up in her eyes.

Hearing the door close once again, Danny walked over to his desk and pounded his fist on the glass tabletop before collapsing in his chair.

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Twenty minutes later, Danny was working on case reports when his cell phone rang. Quickly glancing at the display, he saw "Linds Cell" and let out a heavy sigh. Though he had calmed down some and felt badly for the way he had dismissed her, Danny still wasn't ready to talk.

"Look Lindsay, I don't want to talk about this right now. I already said I'd see you at home, so what do you want?"

"Now Danny, that's no way to talk to your lovely wife."

Danny's blood turned to ice as he recognized the voice on the other end of the phone.

**

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****OK, who wants to hurt me right now?**

**Thanks for reading!!!!**


	2. Chapter 2

**WOW!!! First off, thank you to everybody who read the first chapter and to those of you who left reviews. I must admit, I was expecting a few more threats of bodily harm given the cliffhanger I gave you guys, but it seems like you'd rather have me update than come hunt me down. So, here's chapter 2!!!!!**

**Just to recap, this is a bit of speculation on the return of Shane Casey, but I'm pretty sure I've already made that **_**very**_** clear. And if you didn't already know that I don't own these characters and I'm just borrowing them for a while – there's no excuse now because I just told you!**

**Enjoy!!!!**

**P.S. There's a preview of the next chapter at the end of this!!!!!!!**

As quickly and as calmly as he could, Danny made his way back to Mac's office. Mac looked up from the file in front of him and was surprised to see the younger man standing before him so soon after getting a tongue lashing. Mac was just about to ask Danny what he wanted when he heard him say

"What do you want Casey?"

Mac wasn't sure that he had heard Danny right, but he saw Danny grab a pen and notepad off his desk, quickly scribble down a message, and shove it across the desk at Mac. He read the message and he felt his heart sink into his stomach.

SHANE CASEY HAS LINDSAY

Recovering quickly, Mac pulled out his cell phone and had a trace put immediately on both Lindsay's and Danny's phones. Hanging up quickly, he made another call, but Danny missed what that one was for as he heard Casey's voice once again fill his ear.

"I wanted to see you again Detective Messer, but I figured you wouldn't want to see me, so I thought I'd ask your wife to help convince you." In the background, he heard Lindsay scream "NO DANNY!!!" before the sound of skin hitting skin came across the speaker, followed by silence.

"Casey, get your damn hands off my wife now!!!" Danny could barely contain the anger that boiled up within him at what he had just heard.

"You're not really in the position to be demanding things, now are you Danny?" Casey's voice taunted him.

Danny realized that he had to stay calm if there was any chance of him getting Lindsay back unharmed. "Alright, I'm sorry. What do you want from me?"

"That's much better, now isn't it? OK Danny, here's what I want: I want you to come talk with me in person. I'm not going to tell you exactly where I am, but I'm sure your lab has already put a trace on this call. You have one hour to come meet me and you can bring backup, but only Detective Taylor. If you're late or if you bring anybody else but your boss, you'll have to raise that adorable daughter of yours all on your own. Bye Detective Messer."

As the dial tone echoed in his ear, Danny was reeling. Panic rose up in his eyes as he turned to face Mac once again, but before Danny could say anything else, Mac cut him off.

"I've already got Stella and Hawkes on their way to your apartment to get Lucy – they're bringing her back here. What did he say?"

"He said that I've got an hour to meet him and I can only bring you along or he'll kill Lindsay." Danny's voice wavered as he choked out the last bit of the statement.

"Where did he tell you to meet him?"

"He didn't. He said that I had to find out where he was through the trace on Lindsay's phone." Looking over in the direction of the A/V lab, Danny hurried out of Mac's office, the latter right on his heels. They both found Adam furiously working on his computer, willing the cellphone triangulation to go faster.

"Just give it a few more seconds and we'll have the location." Adam dared a glance over at Danny and noticed the deadened look in his eyes, a look which sent chills through Adam's body. The computer beeped to signify the completion of its task, and before Adam had a chance to read aloud what the screen said, Danny was leaving the room, heading in the direction of the locker room.

"Casey and Lindsay are at the Old English Ale House, the same place where Danny arrested him a couple of years ago."

"Thanks Adam." Mac patted the scared-looking tech on the back and made his own quick exit, stopping quickly at his office before continuing onto the locker room. Approaching the door, Mac heard a loud bang, followed by another loud bang and a cry of frustration. He pushed through the door and found Danny facing his locker, his shoulders shaking slightly and the evidence of a small dent in the locker the size of a fist.

Without turning around, Danny spoke. "I was so pissed at her for ratting me out to you, I just told her to go home, and then when I saw her name flash on my caller i.d., I was even more mad because she couldn't just do as I asked and leave me alone. And now, I'm never gonna get the chance to tell her how sorry I am and how much I love her."

"Danny, you can't think like that. She's going to be fine. Lindsay knows that you love her, one fight doesn't change that."

"You don't know that!!"

"Yes I do, because I know that even though Claire and I fought about my work hours on September 10th 2001, she died knowing how much I loved her." Danny finally turned and faced Mac, staring at him through tear-rimmed eyes. Seeing Mac keeping his own emotions just beneath the surface, Danny thought about what he had just been told and it gave him the smallest ounce of comfort that if, God forbid, the worst happened, Lindsay would still know that he loved her with all his being.

Giving a defeated nod to Mac, Danny started towards the door and said, "Let's go Mac."

**Here's the preview of the next chapter I promised to give you guys:**

"…_**for that to happen, your wife has to die. Say goodbye Danny."**_

"_**NO!!!!"**_

**Thanks for reading!!!! *runs away quickly to avoid any flying objects/body parts***


	3. Chapter 3

**I'm gonna start this chapter off with an apology for being a little mean in the preview I gave you guys last time. As I was typing the author's note, the idea came to me to give a preview, and my mind automatically thought to give the passage I did. While I feel bad for jerking you guys around a little bit, I must admit it was kinda fun at the same time – I now understand why authors use cliffhangers and give previews that make people scream UPDATE NOW!!!!!!**

**Enough of me rambling on, let's get on to what you guys really want to see: What the hell is happening with Lindsay??????!!!!!!**

**Enjoy???**

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The car ride to the Old English Ale House was a silent one, with Danny staring out the window trying to calm himself down, but the quickly passing cityscapes only served as backdrops for the images Danny was seeing.

"_Lindsay Monroe." "Danny Messer, how you doing." "Make tracks cowboy." Their first kiss in the hospital. Finding Lindsay in the middle of the smoke-filled apartment. "I like you…a lot." Her face when he walked into the Montana courtroom. "A Benjamin says I do." Batman vs. Speed Racer. Dennis the Menace. "I've fallen in love with you and know I have to figure out how to let that go." Lindsay, standing at his door, drenched from her rainwalk. "I'm pregnant" and the look in her eyes as she passed him the sonogram. The look on her face after he told her he loved her for the first time. Feeling Lucy kick for the first time. "You got a money order?" Picking her up at the airport after she came back from Montana, looking like a house but more beautiful than ever. Her look of relief when she saw him round the corner at the hospital. The sight of mother and daughter together for the first time. The smile she gave him when he woke up after surgery, happy that he was going to live. "I've gone with the longshot before Danny, and I got you." Her tears as she leaned against the doorframe and watched as he stood for the first time in months, cradling Lucy…_

Danny's thoughts were interrupted when he felt Mac's hand pat his shoulder. Really focusing on what was outside the window, Danny saw that they were parked a few store fronts down from the bar. Both men exited the truck and went to the back to put on their vests. Mac reached into the truck bed once more and pulled out Danny's gun and holster, handing it over to him as soon as he was finished fiddling with his vest. Danny took it and with one last look between the two, they made their way to the bar.

Danny entered first, gun drawn. The bar didn't look to be any different than the last time Danny had been in it, though there was no music playing this time around. The poor lighting made Danny weary of going in any further, so he called out. "We're here Casey. It's just me and Detective Taylor, just like you asked."

The lights in the bar came to life and after blinking to adjust to the light, Danny saw Shane Casey standing across the room from him, a gun trained on Lindsay who was blindfolded, gagged and tied to a chair. He looked a little older, not from age but from the time he had spent in prison, but Danny would recognize Shane Casey anywhere.

"Danny, Detective Taylor, so nice of you two to join us. Lindsay and I have been having a lovely time, she's been telling me all about you and everything that I've missed since we last met." Casey reached forward to pat Lindsay's shoulder and she flinched at the touch, making a muffled scream as she did so. Danny felt the bile rising in his throat and his finger came closer to the trigger of his gun.

"OK, it's time for you guys to put those down," Casey said, gesturing to their guns. "We don't want someone getting hurt, now do we? Guns on the ground, gentlemen, and kick them over towards me."

Danny and Mac did as they were told and held their hands out in front of them for Casey to see. Trying to seem as calm as possible, Danny said, "OK Shane, we've done as you asked, now do something for me."

"Depends on what it is."

"Take the blindfold off."

Casey pondered the request for a few moments before he smiled. "How rude of me. Of course, if only to let you see each other one more time before one of you becomes a single parent." Danny wished he had his gun because he would have killed the bastard on the spot.

Casey took the blindfold off Lindsay and her eyes took a second to adjust before they locked on Danny's and he could see how terrified she was. The sight of Danny made Lindsay start to cry, and Danny felt the tears begin to slip down his own cheeks.

"Ahh, young love – something I haven't had the chance to experience, since I've been stuck in prison."

"How did you get out, and what do you want from me?" Danny asked without taking his eyes off Lindsay.

"Well, the first part I'm going to keep to myself – I can't reveal all my secrets, now can I? – but the second part: retribution," Casey delivered coolly.

Danny finally looked back at Casey, confusion clearly written all over his face. "For what, me arresting you and putting you in jail? That's what I do."

"No, Danny, it's not that simple. Yes, you took my freedom from me, but you took something even more important to me: my brother." Anger was beginning to creep into Casey's voice.

"Your brother was guilty!"

"SHUT UP!!" Casey's gun got closer to Lindsay. "You took away from me the one person in this world that I loved, so I thought that I'd return the favour. When you told me he was guilty, you showed me that the person that I cared about wasn't real – that it was all a lie."

"Look Shane, just because your brother was guilty doesn't mean that the love between you wasn't real," Danny desperately tried to reason with the young man, seeing the gun get closer and closer to Lindsay.

"He swore to me, on his life, that he was innocent and I believed him, until you destroyed that. Ever since that day, I've been waiting to get my revenge – almost 3 years is a long time, but I'm glad I waited." Casey cast his eyes down at Lindsay before looking back at Danny.

"Leave her out of this, I'm the one you want, not her."

"But if I kill you, my revenge is done. I want you to suffer like I've had to, so for that to happen, your wife has to die. Say goodbye Danny."

"NO!!!!"

Danny watched in horror as Casey stepped closer to Lindsay and took the safety off the gun. He quickly dove for the floor and reached for his own gun…

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A young couple passing on the street, completely absorbed in their own world, ran at the sound of 2 gunshots coming from an unknown location, fearful that they could become collateral damage.

A man walking on the other side of the street heard the 2 shots as well, and ducked behind a car, pulling out his cellphone and dialling 911, telling the dispatcher that he'd heard 2 shots and what sounded like a scream a minute after the shooting stopped.

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**Thanks for reading!!!!!**

***runs off to join witness protection after ending 3 chapters in a row with cliffhangers***


	4. Chapter 4

***raises right hand* **

**I, unlikelyRLshipper, do solemnly swear that there are NO MORE CLIFFHANGERS IN THIS STORY. **

**I think you guys have had to put up with enough, and I thank you for continuing to come back, even if you want to rough me up a little (or a lot, because that's OK too!!) I really do appreciate that people are reading this and are interested in seeing where I'm going with this, so I don't want to push my luck with you guys and drive you away by being excessively mean (which I really hope that I haven't done already!).**

**It's time to be straight forward: Lindsay's fate WILL be revealed in this chapter.**

**Let's go straight into it. I hope everybody likes this!**

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Danny had absolutely no idea what had just happened.

He had dove for his gun but before he could even reach it, he heard 2 shots ring out and several loud crashes.

Not wanting to look up but knowing he had to, Danny saw Lindsay's chair tipped on the floor, her eyes closed, and he didn't see any signs of movement from her.

A scream of anguish escaped Danny's throat and he started sobbing.

Suddenly, Lindsay's eyes flew open and locked on his, her head emphatically shaking from side to side. Not completely understanding, Danny looked over at Shane Casey and saw him on the ground completely still, with what appeared to be a blood pool growing around him.

"Danny, get up. It's over." He remembered that Mac was still there with him and he looked back, seeing Mac approach Casey with his gun still trained on him.

"What just happened?"

"Go untie Lindsay, make sure she's OK and I'll tell you."

Danny got up quickly and rushed over to her, righting the chair before first ungagging her. "I wasn't hit, it's OK Danny." He quickly finished untying her before pulling her up into his arms and crushing her against him, managing to choke out "I love you" before dissolving into sobs. Whispering "I love you too" into his ear, Lindsay grabbed onto Danny just as tightly as her own tears started. The couple stood like this for several minutes before daring to pull back from one another in order to fuse their lips together.

The combination of the need for air and the sound of Mac clearing his throat caused Lindsay and Danny to break apart at the mouth while they stayed wrapped up in each other's arms. Turning their attention to Mac, Lindsay spoke first. "Is he…"

"Yes."

From his new vantage point, Danny could now see the hole in Shane Casey's chest where Mac had shot him through the heart. Taking in the rest of the scene, Danny noticed that Mac's gun was still on the ground, not far from his own, but before he could ask, Mac supplied him with the details.

"I had another gun concealed under my vest. I took the chance that Casey wasn't going to search us."

"But how did you get it out, and how did nobody else get shot?" Danny's confusion came through in the question.

"You were the one who helped with both of those. Casey was so focused on you that he wasn't really paying all that much attention to me, especially after you set him off. I started to turn toward you to pretend to try and calm you down, but by turning my right side away from him, I had an easier time of getting the gun out from under my vest so I could get at it when I needed it. As to how nobody else got shot, you asking him to take the blindfold off gave me an idea…"

"_Leave her out of this, I'm the one you want, not her."_

"_But if I kill you…"_

_Once again, Shane Casey was so absorbed with Danny that he was paying almost no attention to Mac. Seizing the opportunity, Mac looked over at Lindsay and locked eyes with her, quickly motioning with his eyes in the direction away from Casey. Lindsay very so slightly nodded her head to let Mac know that she understood._

"_Say goodbye Danny."_

"_NO!!!!"_

_Mac looked at Lindsay again and nodded his head very subtly, and she sent herself tumbling to the floor._

"…Casey was too busy between Lindsay hitting the floor and you diving for your gun to see me get my backup gun. He caught me at the last second and started to aim for me. I shot him and he fired, but he wasn't aiming at anything. The other bullet is somewhere in the wall over there," Mac said, pointing the direction away from where Lindsay had been.

Danny glanced down at his wife and saw her shake her head, verifying what Mac had just told him. Danny was about to speak again when the sound of sirens filled the quiet bar.

"You two sit down in a booth, I'll deal with this." Danny and Lindsay did as they were told and collapsed together in the nearest booth while Mac exited the bar to head off the police.

"I'm so sorry Lindsay, this was all my fault."

The torment that Lindsay saw on Danny's face nearly broke her. "Danny, this was not your fault. I was on my way home when I walked by an alley and heard a young woman scream for help. I went to investigate and as I reached for my gun, a hand came over my eyes and a cloth filled with chloroform was shoved over my nose and mouth. When I woke up again, I was tied down to a chair here with Shane Casey standing over me. As soon as I was awake, he called you."

Unsure of whether he wanted this question answered, Danny pressed on. "What happened while Mac and I were trying to figure out where you were?"

"Well, he blindfolded and gagged me after getting off the phone with you and just kept telling me that killing me was nothing personal against me – he wanted me to understand that I had to die so he could get back at you. He said the same thing that he told you: you took the person that he cared about the most and he was gonna do the same thing to you…" Lindsay's voice trailed off as a look of sheer panic and horror overtook her features. "Oh my God, where's Lucy? Did he get her too?"

Danny immediately pulled Lindsay into his arms and tried to calm her down. "I should have told you right away: She's safe, I promise. When I was on the phone with Casey, Mac called Stella and Hawkes and they went to our place and got her and were bringing her back to the lab."

Lindsay let out the breath she had been holding in and continued to cling to Danny, relieved that her entire family was safe.

Mac re-entered the bar with Flack hot on his heels, who was obviously relieved to see that his two best friends were alright. "Danny, Lindsay, Flack's going to stay here and wait for the CSIs to come and process. I'm taking you back to the lab. IAB will want to talk to all of us."

"Shouldn't Lindsay go to the hospital and get checked out?" Danny asked, clearly concerned for his wife.

Mac looked to Lindsay and waited for her to make her own decision. "I'm fine Danny. He only slapped me across the face when I told you not to come. He didn't do anything else to hurt me, I promise. I want to get this over with so I can see Lucy and we can go home."

Danny didn't want to push her, so he scooted out of the booth, waited for her to join him and then led them to the door. Passing Flack, they paused long enough for the detective to throw his arms around the couple. "I'm so glad that you guys are OK. Go be with your daughter, I've got this." They both nodded and followed Mac out to the truck.

Danny opened the back door for her and quickly removed his vest, tossing it in the front seat before climbing in beside her. Lindsay waited until Danny had his seatbelt one before she wrapped herself around him and held on tight as he did the same to her.

Mac, finally done at the back of the truck, climbed into the cab and looked in the mirror at the young couple. Danny's eyes opened for a moment and locked with Mac's in the mirror. He nodded and started the car. As he pulled out into traffic, he looked in the mirror again and noticed that they were still clinging to each other, eyes closed.

Mac had never been so happy to see them having their hands all other each another.

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**I'd like to state for the record that there never was any plan to seriously hurt/kill Lindsay – I honestly could not have written that type of story. The cliffhangers were my way of building up suspense in the short term and tricking you into thinking that something really bad was gonna happen to Lindsay.**

**The next chapter is probably coming out sometime this weekend. It's time to reunite the Messer family and have Lindsay and Danny start to talk about what happened, but not with each other quite yet *enter Mac***

**Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll be back!!!!!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Once again, I want to thank everybody who has continued to follow this story, and an extra thank you to those who have reviewed and let me know that you want to see where this is going.**

**I still own nothing but my own mistakes, but you already knew that.**

**I'm a little unsure about this chapter, but I hope you all will like it.**

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Mac parked the truck in the garage and exited as Danny and Lindsay did. He came around the car first and started to follow them to the elevators when Lindsay, for the first time leaving Danny's side, rushed over and threw her arms around Mac in a crippling hug.

"Thank you Mac."

"You're welcome, the both of you. My goddaughter needs both of her parents." Mac tried to downplay what he had done, but he didn't expect Lindsay to buy it at all. Lindsay pulled back and gave him a watery smile, willing to let Mac get away with his comment for now, and then she leaned forward again to kiss him on the cheek. Catching his eye once more, she rejoined Danny and the three continued on to the elevators

After a silent ride up to the lab, the elevator doors opened to reveal Stella, Hawkes, Adam and Sid all waiting in the lobby. They all visibly calmed when they saw that all three of their colleagues and friends were OK. Stella was the first to speak up.

"Lucy, look who's here!"

Peeking out from behind Adam's legs, where she had been hiding/playing for the past few minutes, Lucy looked at her parents and her godfather and giggled. With a giant smile on her face, she began to toddle over to them as fast as her little legs could go, and Lindsay and Danny hurried to meet her halfway. Danny was able to reach her first, picking her up and tossing her into the air to more giggles before quickly passing her off to Lindsay, who hugged the little girl tightly and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Danny hung back as everyone came forward to hug Lindsay, and most came over to hug him/pat him on the back as well. Noticing the commotion out in the hallway, the IAB inspector came out of the break room and approached the group. "Detective Taylor, I'm Inspector Kennedy from IAB. I need to speak with you and with both Detective Messers."

"I know. You can speak with me last. Once they're done here, I'm sending my detectives home. Use my office and take Lindsay first."

Seeing no issues with what Mac proposed, the inspector nodded and turned to Lindsay, waiting for her to come with him. Lindsay started to hand Lucy to Danny when she saw panic beginning to set in his eyes.

"I'll be OK Danny. I need you to stay with Lucy – it's been a long day for her." Danny nodded and took Lucy, leaning down to press a kiss to Lindsay's temple. Seeing the unease that still showed on both Danny's and Lindsay's face, Mac spoke up quickly.

"I'll stay with him Lindsay. You go talk with IAB and then you'll switch, and you'll be out of here in no time." Lindsay smiled at Mac, glad that someone would be keeping an eye on Danny, before following the inspector to Mac's office.

As Danny watched Lindsay leave, Stella stepped toward him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "All Lucy's stuff is in yours and Lindsay's office." Danny nodded without looking back and headed for his office, while Lucy popped her head over her father's shoulder and waved to everybody, a gesture everyone else gladly returned.

Mac turned to the rest of the team once Danny and Lucy were out of sight and quickly filled them in on what had happened, asking Stella, Hawkes and Adam to head over to the bar and help with the processing and Sid to go prep for Casey's autopsy. Everyone nodded and went about their tasks, with Stella stopping to hug Mac quickly before joining Hawkes and Adam at the elevator.

Mac made his way toward Danny and Lindsay's office and found him sitting on the floor, Lucy standing up on his lap playing with his face as he simply watched her. Mac quietly entered and took up residence in Lindsay's chair, and as soon as he did so, Lucy became suddenly uninterested in her father and wanted to play with her godfather. Danny's grip on her tightened as she tried to wiggle away, but as her fussing verged on being a tantrum, Danny put her on the floor and let go, allowing her to make her way over to Mac. He scooped her up and sat her on his knee, jumbling her around much to her delight. Danny sat watching the two in silence before daring to speak, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I should have killed Casey myself. I couldn't even protect my wife from him. I should've told you about him and my badge long before now. If I hadn't have been so stupid, this would never have happened."

Mac picked up a toy from Lindsay's desk to distract Lucy with before speaking. "Yes, you should have talked to me right away about your badge when it first happened, but there was no way for you to know what Casey was planning on doing. And I don't regret taking the shot for you – I don't doubt that you would've killed him, but I did it so you wouldn't have to. I can't be accused of doing anything improperly because I'm too close to the hostage. You've already got so much to deal with because of this, you don't need to have killing Shane Casey on your conscious as well."

Danny looked up at Mac and watched as Lucy sat on his lap, completely engrossed for the moment with her toy. "Thanks Mac."

Mac started to shake his head. "As I already told Lindsay, this one needs both her parents. I just did what was right." Seemingly sensing that she was being talked about, Lucy looked over at her father and smiled. Dropping the toy in Mac's lap, she covered her eyes and started to play peek-a-boo.

Lindsay came several minutes later and saw through the glass that Lucy, Danny and Mac were all playing peek-a-boo. Happy to see that what had happened had not affected Lucy, Lindsay knocked on the door before entering so as to not startle anybody. "It's your turn, Dan." Danny got off the floor and headed for the door, stopping long enough to allow Lindsay to kiss him on the cheek before he made his way to Mac's office.

Lindsay plopped down in Danny's chair and took the squirming Lucy from Mac's arms. Lucy immediately snuggled into her mother's body and placed her head in the crook of Lindsay's neck, falling asleep within a few minutes. Mac got up and started to collect all of Lucy's things and pack them away in her diaper bag, setting it by the carseat at the office door. Sitting back down, he took out his cellphone and made a call.

"Can you please send a uniform up here? I need them to take the Messers home once they're done with IAB. Thank you, I owe you one."

Mac ended the call and placed the phone back in his pocket, glancing over at the mother and daughter pair with a set face, effectively cutting off the protest he saw in Lindsay's face. "It's non-negotiable."

Lindsay gave in and nodded, knowing she had already lost the battle. They sat in silence for a while, both lost in their own thoughts when Lindsay spoke.

"I'm afraid that this is going to turn into what happened after Ruben Sandoval died. It feels like he's closing up on me Mac."

"He's blaming himself for all of this. He seems to think that it he had told me about his badge earlier, this wouldn't have happened."

Lindsay gulped at the mention of Danny's badge. "About that Mac, I'm sorry that neither of us said anything earlier on. He asked me not to say anything because he would, but when that didn't happen and it had been well over a month, I couldn't keep quiet anymore. He asked me as his wife not to say anything, but as his partner, I should have told you sooner."

Mac nodded. "Neither of you are coming to work tomorrow, but the day after, the three of us will be sitting down to discuss this. Your marriage is your business, but there's a fine line here since you work together as well. I'm not going to split you two up because of how well you work together and with the rest of the team, but I need to set some ground rules." Lindsay's head hung in shame at having let her boss down. "But that's a conversation for another day. Go home, put Lucy to bed and talk. Get Danny to open up – I think he's still running on pure adrenaline, but he's going to crash pretty soon. Talk, then get some rest and spend the day together as a family."

Mac finished his speech and suddenly stood up. The office door opened and Danny entered and stopped at Lindsay's side, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Danny, as I just told Lindsay, a uniform is taking you guys home. Take the day tomorrow to spend together as a family and then the day after, the three of us are sitting down together to discuss all this."

Looking straight at Mac, Danny answered "Yes boss." Mac spared one last look at the Messer family before heading to his office, not anticipating any issues with IAB about his actions.

* * *

**OK, so the next chapter, which I hope to have up sometime this week, will finally bring an end to this day as the Messers go home and have a chance to finally be alone. And don't worry, I still have a few more chapters planned for this!! I hope you'll be back again.**

**Thanks for reading everybody!!!!**


	6. Chapter 6

**OK, so I'm literally just running in to post this. I have 4 assignments due over the next two weeks and this is the last chapter that I've had a chance to finish before now. I have a few more ideas for chapters so this story is NOT done yet, but I won't be able to get back to it until after April 1****st****. I just wanted to let you guys know, and give you a little piece to tide you over until then.**

**I hope to see you all again in April. Please Enjoy!!!!**

* * *

After packing up the rest of their things and putting a sleeping Lucy in her carseat, Danny and Lindsay met the uniform at the elevators and followed him down to his car. Securing the carseat in the middle of the backseat, Danny and Lindsay sat on either side and held hands over their daughter.

Outside their apartment building, they both thanked the uniform and unloaded the car. He drove off once they were in the building and they waited for the elevator to arrive to take them to their fourth floor home.

Finally getting upstairs and opening the door, Lindsay noticed a note from the babysitter sitting on the hall table.

STELLA SAID SHE WOULD CALL ME WHEN YOU GUYS WERE SAFE, SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT. I'LL CALL YOU IN THE MORNING. TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER AND LUCY.

Lindsay dropped their bags on the floor and made her way over to Lucy, about to put her to bed, when Danny's voice broke the silence in their apartment. "You go lie down and relax for a little bit. I'll put Lucy to bed and come join you."

Lindsay, not wanting to argue anymore today, kissed Lucy and went to their bedroom. Feeling the need to get out of her clothes, she grabbed a pair of sweats and one of Danny's New York Yankees t-shirts and headed into the bathroom across the hall. Glancing at herself in the mirror for the first time, she saw the beginning of a bruise forming across the left side of her face where Casey had backhanded her and her eyes were still red-rimmed from all the crying she had done today, but otherwise there was no outward mark of what had happened to her today.

Lindsay exited the bathroom several minutes later, discarding her clothes in the laundry basket in the corner of their room. She sat against the headboard and waited for Danny to join her, but when she was still sat all by herself five minutes later, she went looking for him. First checking in Lucy's room, she only found her daughter fast asleep in her crib. Exiting the room again, Lindsay closed her eyes and listened for any sound that could give her a clue to Danny's whereabouts.

That was when she heard the faintest of sobs coming from the kitchen. Approaching the kitchen as quietly and as quickly as she could, Lindsay found Danny collapsed against the corner cabinet, his head in his hands, seemingly unaware of her presence. She crouched down before him and peeled his hands from his face, tilting his face to look at her. His eyes opened briefly, but the concern that she was showing him after what had happened to her today was too much for him to bear. He closed his eyes again and continued to cry, while Lindsay, who sat down on the floor in front of him, wiped his tears away and tried to comfort him. After 10 minutes, Danny had finally calmed down enough to speak.

"I am so sorry for all of this Linds, for yelling at you when you were only doing what I should have done a long time ago, for not being there to protect you, for you getting into the middle of this with Shane Casey because you are one of the most important things in my life, for almost getting you killed, for not killing Casey myself, for…"

Lindsay cut him off by leaning forward and gently kissing him. "Stop Danny. I accept your apology for the first thing, but the rest of it isn't on you. There was no way to predict what Casey was going to do. You can't try and apologize for me being in love with you – it's already happened and it's not going to change because of what happened today. You can't stop me loving you, even if it can put me in danger sometimes – I'd love to see you try, us country girls can be stubborn when we want to be. And I'm glad that you didn't take Casey down, because I know you'd be haunted by it, even though you had to take the shot. You're already a mess without having shot Casey, and I'm afraid that it would have made you push me away like you did after Ruben died. Frankly, I fear that you may be heading down that path anyways." Lindsay cast her eyes down from Danny's face, but his finger under her chin quickly put them eye to eye again.

"That's not happening – I won't let it. I'm staying here with you because I don't want to push you away, I want you to catch me when I fall, just like I want to be able to catch you any time you fall. You almost got away from me a couple times before, and there's no way in hell I'm gonna let that happen again. I may not know why you love me, especially after everything that happened today, but I don't want to push my luck any further that I already have."

Lindsay shook her head at Danny, still surprised that he couldn't see why she had fallen in love, and was still in love, with him. "I love you because you're a good man, a great husband, and an amazing father. To borrow from something that you once told me, 'you're everything I've always wanted.' We took that leap and I will be glad that I did for the rest of my life because I wouldn't want this with anyone but you."

Danny started crying again, but this time his tears were caused by her heartfelt words. He pulled her to him and gave her a loving kiss, one that he tried to pack with every single emotion he had ever felt for her. Pulling away from him, Lindsay stood up and offered her hand to him, which he took and pulled himself up with. Hand in hand they walked to their bedroom and Lindsay sat him on the edge of the bed. She helped him out of his shoes and allowed him to deal with his pants by himself as she found a pair of NYPD sweats for him to put on. After putting the sweats on, Danny went to pull his t-shirt over his head when Lindsay's hands stilled his own and took over, revealing his trademark wifebeater underneath.

Placing one last kiss to the fabric over his heart, Lindsay pulled him onto the bed and laid him down on his side. Lindsay wrapped herself around his body as best as she could, somehow managing to envelop his larger framer with her smaller one. At first, Danny wanted to protest her actions, wanting to hold her instead, but he quickly realized that he actually needed to be held and that she had somehow already known it. He covered her hands with his own and whispered "I love you Montana." Lindsay replied with "I love you too cowboy."

Before long, both Lindsay and Danny were fast asleep.

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**Thanks for reading everybody!!!!**


	7. Chapter 7

**OK, so I'm back!!!!!!! I think you guys have waited long enough for an update, so I'll be quick: THANK YOU!!!! to all of you who continue to read/read and review this story and to everybody who has been patiently waiting for an update. I'm glad that you guys are still interested in seeing where I'm taking this!!!**

**Now, onto Danny and Lindsay's day off!!**

**P.S. I think I should put a tissue warning on this chapter (nothing bad, I swear!) It gets pretty emotional in the middle.**

**Enjoy!!!!**

* * *

Danny woke up the next morning in a bit of a panic. He had been having an amazing dream about him and Lindsay, the two of them years later reflecting on their life together. He had passed down a hallway filled with pictures, many of them of Lucy as she grew up and was joined by siblings, who remained unclear to Danny but he had counted two more children. He finally came to the living room/dining room and found Lindsay sitting at the table, putting together a family photo album. He sat down with her and they talked about the life they had led together, when she finally closed the book and gave it to Danny. He opened it expecting to find more photos like the ones in the hallway, but only saw images of Lucy and a few of him and Lucy together. As he looked up to ask Lindsay what was going on, he found himself back in the Old English Ale House with a much younger Lindsay tied to a chair, blood blossoming on her shirt.

His eyes flew open and he instantly reached out for Lindsay, only to find her missing. His breathing became laboured as he tried to figure out where she could have gone, but he soon heard Lucy babbling over the baby monitor, followed by the sweet sound of Lindsay's voice striking up a random conversation with their daughter.

Getting out of bed and quietly padding to his daughter's room, Danny stopped in the doorway and marvelled at the beauty of the scene before him. Much like Lindsay had been halted in her tracks by the sight of him standing cradling Lucy in his arms, he was taken aback by the sight of Lindsay standing nose to nose with Lucy, lost in their own little world and babbling away to one another. The thought that Danny could have lost moments like this forever quickly set upon him and threatened to pull him down when he suddenly heard " 'OOM!!" being squealed at him, the name that Lucy insisted on calling him by, despite the many attempts to teach her 'Dada'.

Lindsay quickly turned to look at him and noticed the haunted look that he tried to cover up with a wide grin. Danny stepped into the room and kissed Lucy on the cheek, greeting his wife with a kiss as well before moving to stand behind Lindsay as he wrapped one arm around her waist and the other around Lucy.

"You're up early."

"Lucy decided that she wanted to get up and talk. I tried ignoring her, but she kept getting antsier, so I got her to let you get some sleep."

"Oh, I didn't even hear her, otherwise I would've gotten her. I woke up and you weren't there, so I was worried about you."

Lindsay caught the slight hitch in Danny's breathing as he finished his explanation. "You OK babe?" she asked, tilting her head back to see Danny's face.

"How can I not be when I got my two girls with me?"

Lindsay wanted to press a little further, but there was something in Danny's eyes and in the way that his arm tightened around her that told her not to press him any further. Smiling up at him, she relaxed further into his body and asked, "So, what do you think we should do with our day off?"

Danny thought for a second before replying. "How's about we go spend the day in Central Park? We can go see some animals, we can let Lucy run around a little bit."

"I'll make some sandwiches and we can have a picnic."

"Sounds great."

* * *

The Messers spent all day in Central Park, and for the most part they had done a good job of forgetting the past 24 hours. It helped, of course, that Lucy was having a ball. When they first arrived, she made no attempts to get out of her stroller, seemingly a little freaked out by all the people, keeping her eyes in constant motion. By the time they got to looking at the animals, her hesitance was all gone and she wanted out. As Danny placed her on his shoulders she quieted down once more and had fun looking at all the things her new vantage point allowed her to see.

They stopped to eat lunch on an open grassy area away from most of the people, and both Danny and Lindsay spent more time chasing down their little escape artist than they did actually eating, but neither really cared. As it got closer to 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Lucy had fallen asleep in her mother's arms, exhausted from the day filled with new experiences, and Danny and Lindsay decided to call it a day.

For as much as Danny had loved seeing the excitement on his daughter's face, these memories were somewhat tainted by the constant death glares he received as they strolled through the park. Before leaving the apartment, Danny asked Lindsay if she wanted to cover-up the bruise on her face with makeup, but she insisted that it wasn't that noticeable and it would all be fine. However, after the tenth dirty look from someone walking by them assuming that Danny had been the one to put it there, he gave up trying to convey his innocence with looks of his own to these judgemental strangers and accepted every disgusted look targeted at him.

In some ways, he couldn't even say that these people were wrong about him: though he had never laid a hand on Lindsay, he was the reason why it had ended up there. There was a small part of him that knew he was being irrational and knew what Lindsay had been saying over and over again in the past day was true, but another larger part of him could not get over the guilt he was barley keeping at bay.

Back in their home, Lindsay took Lucy to go put her down for her nap while Danny went to lie down for a bit, needing to give his back a little rest. He unwittingly fell asleep and dreamt of another day out in the park with a 5 or 6 year old Lucy. He pushed her on the swings and chased her around on the grass before they both tumbled to the ground in a big heap. It was then that Lucy, lying down on his chest and staring at him with her big brown eyes, asked a simple question that tore him into a million pieces:

"_Mommy had to go to Heaven because somebody was mad at you, but why didn't they just take you, so Mommy could've stayed here with me?"_

Danny bolted upright in bed, despite the shot of pain that went through his back, as his eyes frantically searched his surroundings. Becoming aware that he was not in a park, that his daughter was still an infant and his wife was still very much alive, Danny's body was rocked by violent sobs. He fell back onto the bed and curled up into a ball, keeping his eyes shut tightly as he was taken over again by the thoughts of what might have been.

He was so lost in his own sorrow that he didn't even realize somebody else was in the room until he felt Lindsay's tiny hands gently take his head and guide it to her chest, allowing him to feel and hear her heartbeat as she wrapped her arms tightly around him and offered him the comfort he so desperately needed.

They remained locked in that embrace until Danny's sobs finally subsided and he was able to pull back in Lindsay's arms to look at her face, noticing that her eyes, though dry at the moment, were just as red as his likely were.

"Danny, what's ripping you up inside? I saw the haunted look on your face this morning, and it started to re-appear while we were at the park."

"So many people kept giving me such dirty looks because they saw the bruise on your face and assumed I did it."

"Don't let them bother you. I saw them too, but we know what happened, we know the truth."

"Yeah, but the truth is that that bruise ended up there because of me. I didn't do it with my own hands, but it was my fault just the same."

Lindsay let out a frustrated sigh. "Babe, we already talked about this…"

"I know, I know. Deep down I know this wasn't my fault and that you don't blame me, but I can't get past the guilt at the moment. I'm trying not to push you away, but I just need to process the guilt on my own. However, there is something you can do for me in the meantime."

"Anything."

"Hold me when I become a wreck, and remind me that you're not going anywhere."

Lindsay's response was to tighten her grip on him even more and whisper to him, "I love you Danny, and I'm not going anywhere." His face softened and he leaned forward to kiss her, carefully laying one hand over her bruised cheek.

"What happened this morning, and just a little while ago, was that I had these horrible dreams – nightmares really – where I get a glimpse of a future without you in it and where Lucy is asking me why I didn't go to Heaven instead of you."

Lindsay's eyes welled up with tears once again upon hearing what he had been seeing and now she understood his behaviour and reactions. They hadn't really been all that different from the ones she had had after the shootout. She had spent many a night dreaming about what could have been, each time waking up in tears and frantically making sure that he was really there with her. In that moment, she quickly recalled the phrase that Danny had repeated to her each time to calm her down, remembering how helpful it had been for her and decided to give it a shot.

"Danny, whatever you've been dreaming up can't be real, because it would take way more than a few stinkin' bullets to get me to ever leave your side. You're safe, I'm here and I always will be. I love you with everything I was, I am, and ever will be."

Danny broke down in sobs again, clinging to Lindsay with all his strength. In all honesty, those words came out of him one night after another bad nightmare, coming from his heart but definitely also affected by the painkillers he was still on. Without being asked to, he repeated the exact same phrase each time that she woke up in a state, and though he figured she hadn't hated what he'd said to her many times, he'd never really understood just how much those half-heartfelt, half-drug induced words meant to her until she was repeating them back to him.

They remained silently intertwined until Danny's stomach decided to growl. In spite of themselves, they both started to laugh.

"C'mon cowboy, let's go start dinner because if we don't have it close to finished before her highness wakes up, we're gonna have one cranky little girl on our hands."

Danny leaned forward to kiss his wife once more before forcing himself to leave her embrace and stand up. He walked over to her side of the bed and, offering her his hand, helped her up before leading them to the kitchen.

* * *

Hours later, with dinner cooked, eaten and washed up after, and Lucy bathed, changed, and sleeping in her crib, Danny and Lindsay were once again alone with their thoughts. Lying on their bed, both facing each other, they finally talked about the next major hurdle in their lives.

"What do you think Mac's gonna say?" Danny asked, unsure of whether he really wanted an answer.

"I really don't know. I'd be shocked if he didn't throw the book at us."

"What do you mean 'us'? It wasn't your badge that was missing."

"But I was your accomplice in this by not doing what any other partner should've done. Mac's not wrong to be mad – sometimes we forget that while we're at the lab we're Detectives Monroe and Messer, not Danny and Lindsay Messer. I know we can work together and not let our personal lives bleed into that."

Danny looked over at her with sad eyes. "Does that mean that I can't keep calling on you to help me just because I want to be near you, and I can't 'accidentally' brush past you just to touch you for a second, and I can't sneak kisses from you in our office?"

Lindsay smacked him hard in the chest. "I thought we were having a serious conversation here."

"I _am_ being serious!!"

"Babe, Mac's worried about the integrity of the lab and not having us compromise that by bringing our marriage to the job. As long as we don't screw with that, we're good. If you remember, the only time Mac became concerned about us being in a couple was when that Jersey CSI was observing us all and you and I were having some problems."

Danny nodded. "So does that mean that I can still do all that stuff?"

"As long as I get to do it too!" Lindsay said as she wiggled her eyebrows at him.

This caused Danny to grab her, pulling her into his side as he shifted onto his back and started ticking her mercilessly. Lindsay's giggles turned into cries of desperation for him to stop, which he finally did by pulling her back towards him and wrapping his arms tightly around her. Placing her head on his chest, she looked up at him and noticed the worried look beginning to set in on his face.

"We're gonna be OK Dan. We're in this together. Whatever Mac decides to give to us, we'll handle it together."

Danny looked down, knowing his wife would know just how to ease his fears. Leaning down for a goodnight kiss, Danny whispered "I love you Linds" to which Lindsay replied "I love you Danny" before he reached over to shut off the bedside lamp.

They snuggled up close to one another and fell to sleep, knowing that no matter what was said in that meeting the next morning, they'd survive it together.

* * *

**Next chapter: Danny, Lindsay and Mac sit down for a chat……….**

**Thanks for reading everybody!!!! It feels great to be back writing this again!!!!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Let me start by saying that I NEVER intended for there to be more than a month between updates, but RL apparently had other ideas for me. For those of you who are still interested in seeing where this is going, I am utterly and sincerely grateful to you for continuing to come back to this story. I only hope I won't let you down.**

**I'm really not sure if I got Mac right in this chapter. If he seems a little OOC to you, I apologize in advance. I tweaked with this one for a while, but I'm still not sure.**

**Now, onto the first of 2 chapters (I thought it was only fair for you to have two at once since it's been so long).**

**Enjoy?**

* * *

Mac glanced down at his watch. 9:58 am. He called Danny and Lindsay yesterday afternoon, expecting them to be at home, but when no one picked up, he left a message letting them know he'd be waiting for them in his office at 10 o'clock the next morning. He checked his voicemail and his e-mail one more time, just to make sure that they hadn't left him a message telling him they would be late, but there was nothing.

He looked down again. 10:01 am. Ready to pull out his phone, he saw the elevator doors open and watched as the sheepish couple hurried down the hallway, bags still flung over their shoulders. Danny reached the door first and held it open for Lindsay, who quickly grabbed his free hand and squeezed it as she walked by. Together, they stood in front of Mac's desk, waiting for him to make the first move.

"Have a seat," Mac stated plainly, pointing to the couch. They did as they were asked and Mac watched them as he came around the front of his desk to sit in one of his visitor's chairs. Lindsay was sitting still, hands folded in her lap, looking directly at Mac. Danny on the other hand, was staring at the floor in front of him while his legs bounced nervously. A small part of Mac really didn't want to have this conversation, knowing it would be awkward, but he knew he had to, if only for the sake of the lab.

"First things first: it's not official yet as the report is still being written, but there aren't going to be any IAB repercussions from what happened. It's being declared a clean shoot." He noticed Danny nodding, but still refusing to look at him.

"Now I realize that part of this is my fault…"

Lindsay interrupted. "What are you talking about?"

"When you two first got together, I only told you guys that you needed to keep it out of the lab because your relationship was no one's business but your own. When you got married, I should have made the ground rules more clear. You can still work together, but this will be your last warning. I can't risk something like this happening again. As you're well aware, this could have ended up much worse than how it did. If something like this happens again, I will have no choice but to transfer one of you to another shift." Danny became still. "I know that legally you're Danny and Lindsay Messer, but as long as you're in this lab, you are Detective Messer and Detective Monroe, two CSIs who work for me. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes."

"Yes boss."

"Now, because of the serious nature of what has happened, there have to be some repercussions for your actions. Lindsay, you're restricted to the lab for the next two weeks. Danny, you're off the promotion scale until further notice. You'll be restricted to desk duty for the next two weeks, then lab restricted for the following two weeks."

Both nodded their heads, acknowledging what they understood their punishments. "You're both scheduled today for 11 o'clock, so you have some time before your shifts start."

Lindsay started to get up when she felt Mac lean forward and put his hand on her knee. She glanced up and noticed that her boss Detective Taylor had been replaced by her friend and mentor Mac. "How are you doing Lindsay?"

"I'm OK Mac. I'm just trying to get back to normal."

"Is Lucy OK?" Mac had been worried that what had happened might have been picked up by his young goddaughter.

"Yes, she has no idea what happened. We took her to Central Park yesterday and she had a ball. It's been really helpful to have her, she reminds us both that there's something more important to focus on, you know?"

Mac nodded his head as a small hint of a smile graced his lips. "I'm glad to hear it – about the both of you." In the back of his mind, Mac knew that Danny right now was the wreck and that Lindsay was likely holding everything together for his sake, so Mac didn't press any further.

Mac's phone began to ring. "You two can go now."

Lindsay nodded and gave Mac a very small smile before getting up and heading for the door. Looking back, she saw her husband follow suit, but his body language gave away just how dejected he was.

She hadn't been surprised to see Danny all but refusing to make eye contact with Mac. He had told her once about what had happened the year before she arrived when he was accused of shooting an undercover cop. He had told her how he had come into that final meeting with Mac all pissed off and ready for a fight, and then Mac told him that he had been advised against hiring him. The truth had pissed him off, but what haunted Danny about that meeting, he admitted very reluctantly, was the disappointment he had seen in Mac's eyes. That one look from Mac had cut him very deeply, and he admitted that he never wanted to see it again from the man who had become like a second father to him. Lindsay knew that Danny felt horribly about what he had done, and that he was angry with himself for making such a stupid mistake.

Danny was just about to cross the threshold of the office when Mac called out to him. Though Danny was still hesitant to look into his boss's face, there was something in Mac's tone that seemed different from how he had just chewed them out, so he dared to look up. Mac's face was still stern, but his eyes had softened, looking at Danny in the same way that he had done when Danny had asked him for advice about marrying Lindsay.

"This was found in Shane Casey's pocket. I believe it belongs to you. Try to keep track of it this time."

Mac's left hand disappeared into his pocket before re-emerging with a shiny object that he quickly tossed at Danny. Danny caught it and glanced down at his shield for the first time in several weeks. He locked eyes with Mac and nodded, desperately fighting against the tears that he could feel brimming in his eyes. Mac's only response was to pick up his still ringing phone and answer "Mac Taylor."

Listening to the reporter asking for a comment on their latest case, Mac watched the young couple make their way to the locker room, and noticed Danny reach for his wife's hand and squeeze it quickly before letting it go, much like she had done for him. Mac allowed himself to smile before the moment was broken by the reporter calling his name out, wondering if he had heard him.

"No comment," he firmly stated before hanging up the phone down and heading out of his office to go confer with Sid about the cause of death in their latest case.


	9. Chapter 9

**Just a quick warning on this one – there's some swearing in the middle of it. When I originally thought of this chapter, it was supposed to be a bit angsty, but it turned out much more angsty than planned.**

**And now for part two of the update:**

* * *

Danny was two days shy of the end of his mandatory desk-riding period when Flack called him asking him to come process a suspect. Everybody had been made aware of Danny's restrictions, so he shouldn't have been called down, but he knew that everyone else was working a case outside the lab at the moment and his wife, herself almost at the end of her two-week lab restriction, wasn't on shift for another 45 minutes. Flack sounded desperate, so he told Flack he'd be down in a few minutes. It was a decision Danny would soon come to regret.

Danny met Flack outside the interrogation room and got some brief details: the guy was the lead suspect in his wife's murder, and Danny was needed to process the guy, taking his clothes, DNA, etc. and document any injuries on the guy's body, as it appeared that the victim had badly scratched her killer. Danny nodded his head and followed Flack into the room, merely there to do his job and leave as quickly as possible, sensing that he might not be able to control his emotions on this one.

"Get up Kennedy and strip. We got a warrant for your clothes and your DNA, and we'll be taking pictures too, so I hope you're camera-ready."

The smug look that Danny noticed on the man's face faded somewhat after Flack spoke, but he begrudgedly started to take off his clothes. His shirt came off last and with some forceful words from Flack, revealing numerous tracks of scratches running all over his chest, many of them still a dark red.

Danny completed the job he had been asked to do and he started to pack everything up when Flack asked "Why did you kill your wife Kennedy?"

"The bitch had it coming. I only married her for her money. I thought I could tough it out until I could divorce her and get a good chunk of her money, but she was just so goddamn naggy. I found divorce papers hidden in a drawer, and when I confronted her about them, she said she never should've married me and that I was never gonna see a dime of her money. Five years I wasted on her, and for what?"

The next thing Flack knew, the table in the interrogation room was upended, throwing the casefile all over the floor, and Danny was drawing nearer to the suspect, a terrifying look in his eyes. Flack jumped forward to restrain Danny as the uniform posted outside stepped in upon hearing the commotion. "You stay here with him. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

Flack dragged a somewhat resistant Danny across the hall into another interrogation room, pushing him through the door yelling "Stay here!" before whipping out his cell phone to make a call.

"Lindsay Messer."

"Hi Lindsay, it's Don. Are you at the lab yet?"

"Yeah, I got here 5 minutes ago, why?"

"Can you come over here please? I had to call Danny over to process a suspect who murdered his wife, and Danny just freaked out."

"Is he OK?" Flack could hear the shock in her voice and it sounded like she was already making her way down.

"Everybody's fine, he just upended the table in the room. I just think you're the only one who can get him out of this."

"OK, I'll be there in a few minutes. Don, do me a favour: don't tell him that you called me. You go ahead and talk to him and I'm gonna watch for a bit from the other side of the glass."

Flack was a little confused by her request, but he chose not to question it. Saying goodbye to Lindsay and shutting his phone, he entered the room and found Danny pacing back and forth.

"Danny, what the hell just happened in there?"

"Nothing. I just lost my head for a second there. Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about it? I saw the look in your eyes Danny – it freaked me out."

"You're overreacting Don, I'm fine."

"No you're not Danny. You got some bad stuff going on right now and you know it – hell, everybody knows it. We all just want to help you and Lindsay."

"Just drop it man."

"No I won't. Ever since Lindsay got taken, you've been barely holding on. You're a mess."

"And you're really the posterchild for being all together?" Flack was taken aback by the low blow: to an extent he deserved it because he'd done the same thing to Danny several months ago, but it still stung.

"Surprise, surprise, Danny Messer pushing people away, just like he's always done. Haven't you learned yet that that only makes everything worse? What are you gonna do Danny? Are you gonna push us all away? Are you trying to push Lindsay and Lucy away?

Flack kept his eyes trained on Danny and he saw all the anger flow out of him. If Flack hadn't been able to see Danny's face and see his lips move, he would not have caught Danny's dejected whisper of a reply.

"Yes."

Glancing over at his friend and seeing the confusion on his face, Danny explained further without looking directly in Flack's eyes. "They need someone who can protect them, not a liability who puts them in danger. I'm no good for them Flack, can't you see? It would be better this way."

Both men stood in silence for several moments, unsure of what to say next. Quietly, the door opened and Lindsay stepped into the room, tears streaking down her face but with pure anger in her eyes.

"Better for who, exactly?"

Danny had been so caught up in his own thoughts that he had failed to hear her entrance, but without needing to look at her he knew she was hurt by what she had heard him admit. He couldn't bring himself to look at her.

Flack, for his part, quickly recognized that he needed to get out the room as fast as possible, so he made for the door, squeezing by Lindsay to head back to check up on his suspect.

The door shut behind Flack, leaving the spouses all alone. Danny remained on the far side of the room, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw Lindsay continue to stand just inside the door, her hands balled into fists. Continuing to avoid her eyes, Danny started to explain it all to his wife. "Lindsay, I…"

"Shut your mouth Messer."

'Messer' was usually only reserved for when she was beyond pissed off at him, so he knew she wasn't playing around…at all.

"You son of a bitch, how can you tell me to my face that you're not going to push me away, and then you go and say that that's exactly what you're going to do? Are you really going to do that to your daughter, who worships the ground you walk on and has absolutely no idea what happened a couple of days ago? How are you going to explain to her that you walked away from her because you think you're no good for her?"

Danny said nothing, but his eyes started to well up. He hadn't really got that far ahead of himself in thinking this through.

"Are you really gonna do that to me too? From the moment I met you at the tiger cage, I haven't been able to separate myself from you. I tried pushing you away and it didn't work, so eventually I decided to given in, which I'd never done before. I never regretted that decision, until Ruben died. You threw me and what we had away with one mistake, and even while I was falling apart and beating myself up for my decision, a part of me still didn't want to live my life without you in it.

"You know, for as much as you got ragged on for having the reputation of a player and scoffing the idea of falling in love, I was the same way. Any relationship I was in was just to pass the time and have a little fun so I didn't feel so alone. After what happened to my friends, I was afraid to let people into my heart again." The frustration and anger was building up in Lindsay's voice, finally forcing Danny to look at his wife, afraid to look anywhere else.

"Don't you get it you selfish bastard? Losing my friends broke me and you put me back together, even though I wasn't asking you to. You pushing me away kills me inside: you already did it once and I almost didn't survive that, but where we are now, married and with a child, and with what's coming down the pipeline for me – actually dealing with nearly being killed – you pushing me away will absolutely destroy me. If you were planning on doing that, it probably would have been better that you let me die by Casey's hand – at least then the pain would've been over quickly."

Lindsay saw the shock and the flash of hurt cross Danny's face, but when he made no attempts to say anything, or really do anything, she turned and grabbed for the door handle, ready to storm upstairs and hide in the locker room and cry until her shift started. She knew she wouldn't be able to mask her emotions that well and would already be breaking the rules Mac had set out less than two weeks earlier, but she vowed that she would at least try, given that it seemed like she would have to continue to work with Danny all while their marriage slipped through her hands.

Instead of feeling cold metal within her palm, Lindsay felt a larger hand envelop hers and lock onto it like a vice. In the back of her mind, she knew the hand belonged to Danny, but she was still stunned when she turned and stared straight ahead, seeing his chest right in front of her face, though he had seemingly been across the room only a millisecond before.

She refused to look up at him, not wanting to see the look in his eyes, when she felt his other hand somewhat roughly raise her chin as his lips came crashing down upon hers. She quickly yanked her hand out of Danny's and started to shove him away from her, but in the next moment she was pulling herself as close as possible to him. He helped her by wrapping his arms around her slender frame and forcing her to melt into his body. They continued to find for dominance in devouring each other until the need for oxygen was absolutely dire. They only parted at the mouths, resting their foreheads against one another as they both gasped for the same air. Lindsay finally opened her eyes again and found Danny's eyes staring at her, darkened by desire but coloured also by hurt. Danny broke the silence between them.

"Don't you ever say something like that to me again Lindsay, wishing that I had let you die. I swear that I'm not trying to destroy you, that I would never intentionally do something like that, but you talking like that, I can't bear it because I don't want to live without you – I can't breathe without you. Pushing you away, assuming that it would be for the best, I'd not be living after that, I'd just be going through the motions. With you completely gone from my life, I wouldn't want to keep living without you. I'd only do it for Lucy – for nothing and for nobody but her.

"I live in constant fear that something bad is going to happen to somebody I love, and even the thought of it being my fault, no matter how misguided that judgement is, it's hard for me to handle. I've really been trying Lindsay, and I thought I had it under control, but that guy today who killed his wife because he felt he had wasted years of his life on her, I don't ever want you or I to think that this has all been a waste because only one of us is truly in this. I'll love you for as long as you'll have me – and even after – and I swear to you before God and on Lucy's life that I will never, ever push you away again. It's the least you deserve for putting up with my sorry ass."

Danny hadn't been making a joke, so he was surprised when Lindsay giggled a little. "What's so funny?"

"You are a sorry ass." Danny closed his eyes, thinking that it was too little too late, but the feeling of her hand gently cupping his cheek made him reopen his eyes. "But, you're _my_ sorry ass."

He tightened his grip around her again and buried his head in her neck, whispering "Thank you" as several tears spilled from his eyes onto her bare skin. She gently pulled his head up and wiped his tears away. They shared another kiss, sweeter this time but no less passionate, before Lindsay's phone buzzed, the alarm she had set before coming down reminding her that her shift started in 5 minutes. Wordlessly, they exited the interrogation room and headed back for the lab, picking up Danny's kit from the uniform who he had seen enter the room after Flack whisked him out.

Stepping onto to elevator, Danny pulled Lindsay into his side and placed a kiss into the hair at her temple. As the elevator door closed, Lindsay placed her head on his shoulder and reached up to thread the fingers of her left hand with the fingers of his right hand, which dangled down from where his arm was tightly wrapped around her shoulders.

Though things were far from completely resolved between the couple, they both knew that they had survived the worst of it. Even if things got bad again, they were both comforted by knowing that they were stronger as a couple for the experience.

* * *

**That's the end of Danny coming to grips with what happened, so I hope you enjoyed it. ('enjoyed' really does not seem to be the right word here, but oh well…)**

**Anyways, the next chapter (which I've already started to write!) will begin to deal with Lindsay and how she confronts what has happened to her. I hope you come back and see how that will unfold.**

**Thanks for reading everybody! ****Bye for now!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Yeah, another update! I'm probably more excited to be finished another chapter of this story (and in a timely manner) than you guys are to be reading it. Thank you once again to those of you who continue to read this story – I know some of you have stuck it out since the beginning, and I think you are the most awesome people for doing so!**

**As promised, this chapter finally has Lindsay begin to deal with what happened to her.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Lindsay had known this was coming for a while, but she had never expected the delay to be nearly three weeks. When her friends were murdered, she'd somehow managed to avoid having a full-fledged breakdown about what had happened for a little longer than a week. She'd numbly made it through all the police questioning and the mass gathering celebrating the lives of her best friends, and then each funeral without dissolving into a mess. She'd even gone back to school for a day and made it through all the stares and the whispers. It was only after she'd come home that day, thrown her bag on the kitchen table, said hello to her mom and told her that she was going to meet the girls by the lake and that she'd be back by dinner, and then run back out the door that her entire world came crashing in.

Her mother found her collapsed and sobbing on the front porch, and Lindsay spent the rest of the week shut up in her room, refusing to speak to anyone and only eating the food that her mother force fed her. After six days like that, she came out of her state and was willing to seek help for her trauma. It had taken a lot of work, but eventually Lindsay was able to be more open about what had happened, and she gotten to a point where the majority of the memories she carried about her friends were good ones.

Part of Lindsay wondered whether the lesser severity of the occurrence and her already having lived through a similar trauma had contributed to the delayed breakdown, but she also suspected that it had something to do with waiting until Danny was ready emotionally to support her before she came undone.

Nevertheless, Lindsay had been on her way home, listening to her Ipod, when a block and a half from their home someone placed a hand on her shoulder. Instinctively she reached for her gun and whipped around, but she saw that it was only an elderly man holding out a five dollar bill.

"I didn't mean to startle you young lady, it's just that you dropped this when you fiddled with your purse and you didn't hear me call out to you." Lindsay gaped at him and felt her emotions ready to burst through the floodgates. She took the bill back and stammered through her thanks before hurrying home as fast as she could.

In record time, she was safely in her apartment, and she felt the first tears come streaming down her face. She noticed a note on the hallway table, announcing that Danny had run down to the nearby bodega with Lucy to get some milk about 10 minutes earlier. Lindsay knew that she didn't have a lot of time to cry her emotions out to the point where she could actually talk with Danny, so she hurried into the bedroom and curled up into a ball on the bed and completely let go.

In that moment, she felt the release of not only what Shane Casey had done and could have done to her and her family, but also the anguish over what Danny had been feeling and how close she had come to losing him by his own foolishness. For about ten minutes, Lindsay let herself feel whatever it was that came to her, but it wasn't long enough as she heard Danny re-enter their home. He called out to her, but she couldn't get her throat to make any noise but cries, so he must've assumed that she wasn't home yet as she heard the fridge door open and close before his footsteps headed towards Lucy's room. Lindsay assumed that Lucy had fallen asleep during their excursion and that he was putting her in her crib for her nap. She waited until she heard Danny's footsteps once again in the hallway before she attempted to speak again.

"Danny."

"Is that you babe?"

Lindsay didn't think she could get much more out so she just called his name again, but it came out more like a sob than anything else. Danny must've heard it too as he quickly entered their bedroom and sat down on the bed, gently turning Lindsay so she was facing him. Seeing how shaken she was, Danny panicked for a moment, unsure of what had befallen her.

"What's wrong sweetheart?"

Once again Lindsay only managed to get out one word, "Breakdown," before her emotions completely took over again. Luckily, Danny understood what she was trying to tell him, so he gathered her into his arms and pulled her into his lap, cradling her to his chest as she sobbed. He knew nothing he said could stop the floodgates of her emotions, so he held her close and told her to let everything out and that he was right there for her.

Eventually, Lindsay's tears subsided and she pulled back from Danny, but only enough to allow her to speak without her words being muffled by his shirt.

"I was on my way home, listening to my Ipod, and about a block from here, someone tapped me on the shoulder. Thinking about it now, it was nothing like the situation with Casey, but the first thing that flashed before my eyes was being knocked out. I whipped around and reached for my gun, which thankfully I didn't pull on the elderly gentleman who was only trying to give me back the five dollar bill that I dropped. Everything that's happened over the past three weeks suddenly rushed up within me, so I hurried home to breakdown here instead of in the middle of the street."

Danny pulled her back into his body to envelop her in a tight hug and kissed her forehead. "It's not wrong of you to compare the two situations: both times you were minding your own business when somebody caught you by surprise. If I'm being honest, I'm glad that something finally triggered you to breakdown – not that it doesn't kill me inside to see you all torn apart like this. While I guess it was a good thing that we both weren't emotional wrecks at the same time, this whole time I've been worried about you. Nothing directly happened to me and I was really messed up, but you…"

Lindsay pulled back from him again. "I think that I was instinctively holding back on dealing with this until you were through the worst of it so that I could have you to lean on like you had me. As well, if you remember me telling you about what happened after my friends died, I didn't come to terms with what happened for about a week, and that was only triggered by the most inane thing."

Danny did remember her telling him about all this, back when he had flown out to Montana to support her during the trial of her friends' murderer. She had told him everything about what had happened, and while his heart had broken over and over for her, he was glad that she was able to talk so frankly with him about it. He recalled how badly she had taken their deaths when she finally came to grips with it, and it frightened him that it could potentially happen again. Glancing down at Lindsay, he saw a faraway look in her eyes, like she was reliving that week of mourning all over again, and he reached out to cup her face in his hand to bring her back to the present.

"Linds, do you need some time? If you do, just take it. I'll cover for you at work until you're ready."

She smiled at his concern, but shook her head. "I think I'm OK Danny. I really just needed to cry all of that out. If I need to breakdown again, you'll be the first one I tell, but honestly, I just want to move on with our lives."

Before Danny could say anymore, she leaned forward and kissed him passionately. Halfway through the kiss, they heard Lucy begin to cry over the baby monitor, and as Danny started to pull away to go to her, Lindsay pecked him once more on the lips before climbing off his lap, jumping off the bed and heading to the nursery.

Leaning back against the headboard, he listened to Lindsay calm Lucy down, allowing himself to get caught up for a moment in the sound of her voice. Yet, in the back of his mind, Danny knew that Lindsay's emotions were far from stabilizing. Over the years, he'd come to know that both he and Lindsay were emotional people, and while he was more outwardly open with his emotions, she kept them inside her and had a harder time processing them because of it.

While he was glad that she was willing to open up to him, he sensed that this was only the beginning and that it would not be the last time that she completely broke down, or dealt with her emotions in another manner. However, he also knew that he couldn't push her and that everything would come out in time, so Danny promised himself that he would keep a close eye on her and be ready to support her in whatever way she needed. With his resolve firmly set, he got off the bed and went to go join his wife and daughter.

* * *

**If you hadn't already guessed, Danny is right in thinking that this is far from over for Lindsay. Her behaviour is about to get more erratic, and it ain't gonna be pretty for D/L – but I don't want to spoil you for the next chapter (it's about half done though!)**

**I'm thinking this story has about another 2 chapters and then an epilogue, and I'm gonna see if I can finish it before the finale on the 26****th**** – a little crazy and a lot ambitious for me, but I'm gonna try!**

**Thanks for reading everybody!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Here's another chapter for you guys. As I mentioned/teased last time, Lindsay's behaviour is about to spiral out of control and Danny is going to confront her about it. D/L get a little roughed up (emotionally, that is) in this one, so be warned!**

**I hope you like it.**

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For the next two days, Lindsay truly was trying to move on in her life. She went to work and did her job without any problems. She came home and played with her daughter and cuddled up with her husband watching TV, even getting back into the habit of yelling at the TV when her favourite couple on a particular TV show she loved was ignored. At night, she would feel her husband wrap her up in his arms and she was thankful that she was still around to share her life with her family.

Everything was going fine, and then the nightmares began.

At first, she would just relive the whole episode exactly as it happened, and she would wake up startled but would quickly realize where she was and would calm down and go back to sleep. After a couple of days, the nightmares changed, now focusing on what could've happened. In some, she died and she would see glimpses of the life of her family afterwards: Danny looked like a mere shadow of his former self as Lindsay saw her daughter grow up without her. In others, Danny was the one who had been killed by Shane Casey and as she watched Lucy grow up without her father, Lindsay saw the pain in her own expressions.

These dreams caused Lindsay to wake up crying, and each time Danny would wake up and comfort her, but as he went back to sleep, Lindsay would lie awake for hours, afraid of what she would see when she closed her eyes again. Periodically, the nightmares would change into completely different scenarios: Lucy would vanish from the nearby park when one of them, or both of them, was turned away for only a second and they would receive a ransom call from Shane Casey. In another scenario, they were on vacation on Long Island and while touring the lighthouse, they were trapped up in it with Shane Casey threatening to kill their entire family. However the nightmares played out in her mind, it was no less frightening to Lindsay because each time, Casey succeeded in hurting, or worse killing, those closest to her.

Each morning, Lindsay could see just how worried Danny was for her, especially as the nightmares got worse, but she rebuffed his attempts to talk and he wouldn't push her to talk about it. Though Lindsay had told him that she would talk to him if she was having problems, she was in denial that she did in fact have problems. Lindsay had convinced herself that she could stop the nightmares on her own using the same technique that she had been taught by her therapist as a teenager. Each night before she went to bed, she told herself she wouldn't have nightmares that night, and each time it failed, but since it had taken a while to work the first time around, she figured it was only a matter of time before it worked.

Lindsay was so deep in denial and so convinced that she had everything under control that she never realized that she was throwing herself into her work and pulling away from her family. She barely noticed that she was spending less and less time with Lucy and Danny, instead choosing to be alone in the bedroom she shared with Danny, lying on the bed to think and willing herself not to fall asleep. At first, Danny was willing to give her _some _space, but it was getting to the point where Lindsay was barely talking to him about anything. With each passing day, things were getting worse and worse, and Danny knew it was time for him to step in, whether Lindsay liked it or not.

* * *

The day that Danny finally decided to confront his wife just happened to be her day off. A while back, she had mentioned that she planned on running some errands on her next day off, so he wasn't surprised when he called home and only got their answering machine. Instead of leaving a message, he decided to hang up and call her cell phone and tell her that they really needed to talk that night, but before Danny could place the call, he saw Flack walking through the lab, seemingly on his way to Danny and Lindsay's office. It had only been a few days since the end of Danny's lab restrictions and it was the first time that he had actually seen Flack since that day in the interrogation room.

"Grab your kit Danny, we got a dead body in an apartment over in Brooklyn," Flack said as he poked his head in the door. He started to walk away again, but stopped when Danny said called out his name. With his friend's attention, Danny began to speak.

"Don, I'm sorry about what happened in the interrogation room, I was way outta line."

"Hey, I did the same to you."

Danny shook his head emphatically. "No, you didn't. You were messed up because someone you loved was taken away from you and you had every right to be. I was fortunate enough to be give another chance with the woman I love, and I was squandering that. You were just trying to open my eyes and make me realize how blessed I am to still have Lindsay in my life. I'm truly sorry man, what I said to you was beyond a low blow and you didn't deserve it."

Flack felt his eyes begin to well up at Danny's openness and sincerity. "Thanks Danny, I appreciate the apology."

"So are we cool again?" Danny asked hopefully.

"We're good Danno. Now grab your kit and I'll meet you by the elevators." Don smiled at his best friend as he left the doorway and headed for the elevators.

Danny quickly whipped out his phone and called Lindsay's cell phone, again getting the answering machine. He told her that he'd be going out to a scene and would be in and out of the office all day, and he asked her to call him back when she had a chance because he wanted to talk to her about something. Ending the message, he put his phone back on his belt, grabbed his kit and went to go join Flack.

Danny spent the rest of his shift chasing down leads in his case, so he didn't have a chance to check his cell phone until hours later, and he was a little surprised to see no response back from Lindsay because usually when one of them had a day off, they would call each other at least once during the day just to touch base. Stopping off at his desk once more before heading home for the night, Danny saw that no messages had been left for him at the office. He called home again and still only got their answering machine.

Danny tried not to panic, because he just assumed that Lindsay had forgotten her cell phone at home, something that he had done about three months ago.

_He'd gone out for groceries with Lucy on his day off and came home to find several increasingly frantic messages from Lindsay trying to figure out where they were and why Danny wasn't picking up his cell phone. He reached into his pocket and didn't find his cell phone there, later finding it on the kitchen counter, where he had left it inadvertently after Lucy fell down and hit her head on the coffeetable leg. Danny immediately called Lindsay back and apologized profusely, and though Lindsay was still irritated with him, she was more glad that everything was alright._

Danny knew that a similar mistake could've befallen Lindsay, but his gut told him that something else was going on here.

He hurried home, hoping to find his two girls safe and sound back at home, but the only things that greeted him when he opened the door were silence and darkness. Danny turned on a light and saw that there was no note left for him in the usual spot next to the answering machine, and he saw that the only two calls had been from him. On the off chance that Lindsay forgot her cell phone he tried calling it to see if it would ring in the apartment, but he still only heard silence. It went to her answering machine again, and he left another message.

"Hi Lindsay, it's me. Where the hell have you been all day, and why aren't you calling me back? If you don't want to talk to me, that's fine, just please send me a text letting me that you and Lucy are OK and I'll leave it at that until you come home. Just let me know that you're OK. I love you."

Danny ended the call and glanced over at the clock on the cable box. 7:10 pm. He promised himself that he'd give her until 8:00 pm to either contact him or show up at home before he started calling Stella and Flack to help him find her.

Before letting the matter rest for the time being, Danny quickly called his parent's house to check that she wasn't visiting his mom. His dad picked up the phone and said that they hadn't heard from Lindsay at all that day. Danny quickly thanked his dad and hung up before he could ask any questions. Reaching for the light, he turned it off before feeling his way over to the couch and collapsing on it as tears streamed down his face.

* * *

He heard a key in the lock, and glanced over at the cable box again, seeing that it was 7:51 pm. He remained in darkness as he heard the door open and the stroller creak as it crossed over the threshold. Lindsay's footfalls told him she was coming to turn on the light nearest to him, so he beat her to it, causing Lindsay to jump back in surprise.

"Danny, what the hell are you playing at? I'm not doing too good right now with surprises, so…" Lindsay trailed off as she saw Danny get up and blow right past her to go pick the sleeping Lucy up out of her stroller, kissing her on the cheek and then checking her over to see that she was alright. Lindsay saw this, and it made her angry.

"She's fine. She's been with me all day, nothing happened to her."

Once again, Danny ignored his wife, taking Lucy into the nursery to change her, put her into her pyjamas and place her in her crib. Lindsay spent the time in between packing the stroller away in their front closet and putting all the uneaten food back in the fridge and the dishes in the sink. As she exited the kitchen, she heard Danny shut the nursery door, something that they usually didn't do unless they were about to get into an argument.

Lindsay quickly tried to deflect whatever was coming at her. "Danny, I…"

"Where the hell have you been?" His voice was low, but the hardened edge to it could be mistaken for nothing else but anger.

"I was out."

"Where the fuck have you been Lindsay?"

"I needed the day to clear my head, so I took Lucy to the park for a while. I walked around a mall while she was napping and then I took her to the children's museum not far from the lab after that," she told him matter-of-factly, like it was part of her daily routine.

"Why haven't you been answering your phone?"

This time, Lindsay's answer was laced with defiance. "Like I said, I was trying to clear my head, so I kept it off all day so I wouldn't be bothered."

Danny's voice finally increased in volume. "Am I a 'bother' to you now?"

"Don't be so melodramatic. I'm fine, Lucy's fine, everyone's back in one piece, so why don't you lay off alright?"

Lindsay started to move towards their bedroom, hoping to make it by him, but he just stepped right in her way and spread himself out so it was impossible for her to get around him.

"I've called you a couple of times, both here and on your cell phone, trying to figure out if you're alright, worried sick that something bad happened to you, to Lucy, or to both of you, and you're trying to brush it off like it's nothing? You disappeared with our daughter for the whole day and nobody knew where you were – nobody could reach you! I was getting ready to go call Stella and Flack to help me figure out where the hell you were." Lindsay rolled her eyes, trying to convey to her husband how ridiculous it would've been for him to have involved their friends. "Frankly, I don't give a shit if you think that would have been ridiculous and overbearing of me, but I had no idea if you were alive or dead. Don't you realize just how stupid and reckless that was?"

Danny's accusation fuelled Lindsay's anger. "Are you saying that I can't take care of our daughter?"

"This has nothing to do with your parenting skills!"

"Yes it does! A person can't just be stupid and reckless at one time and not be at another. And anyways, who are you to talk, Mr. I-walk-away-from-people-I-claim-to-love?" At her words, Danny felt his heart being ripped out. She knew exactly how guilty he felt about that mistake, so to hear her throw that back in his face was almost too painful to bear. He was about to respond to that when Lucy started to cry.

"You know what Danny, after everything I've been through lately, I don't need to put up with this shit." Lindsay started to move away from him, but he grabbed her wrist to keep her in place for the moment.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know, but I know I need to get the hell outta here. Why don't you go comfort Lucy, since you think I'm such a bad mother." Lindsay pulled her wrist from his hand and went to collect her jacket and keys, but before Danny could stop her, Lucy's cries grew more urgent. Deciding that it was best to let Lindsay go, he retreated back into their apartment. As he entered the nursery, he heard the front door open and slam shut, but he shoved his anger aside to go deal with Lucy.

After five minutes of speaking calmly to her and reassuring her that everything was alright, Lucy finally went back to sleep. Danny placed her back in her crib and quietly shut the door again before sliding down to the floor on the adjacent wall and starting to sob, knowing that his wife was in all kinds of pain but not knowing how to get through to her.

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**Yikes! Don't worry, I'm not leaving D/L in such a horrible, angsty place, but Lindsay needed to get erratic in her behaviour (however much it may pain me to do so).**

**Next chapter: We'll see what happens to Lindsay once she storms out of the apartment.**

**Thanks for reading! **


	12. Chapter 12

**OK, so there was only supposed to be one more chapter of this story before the epilogue, but after looking at how much I wanted to cover in that one chapter, I decided to break it into two. And then, because I thought it a little unfair to have you have to wait for what should have been the second half of the chapter, I decided to post them both!**

**So, I really hope that you like these final two chapters of this story! Enjoy!**

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As soon as Lindsay left their apartment, she was on autopilot. By the time she realized what she was doing, she had taken a cab across town and was standing outside the apartment building of her friend and co-worker Stella Bonasera. Though she knew that Stella wasn't big on having people over to her home, even her friends, because of her past experiences, Lindsay was in desperate need of a friend, and Stella had always been there for her in the past, whether Lindsay realized that she needed a friend or not. Lindsay pressed the buzzer next to Stella's apartment number, 6B, and waited for an answer.

"Yes, hello?"

"Hi Stella, it's Lindsay."

"Kiddo, what are you doing here?"

"Um, I…I…I need a friend to talk to." Lindsay had planned on apologizing for calling around unannounced and presuming that Stella had nothing else she needed to that night, but she had barely managed to get through what she had said. Immediately, she heard the door buzz, allowing her access to the building. The elevator came right away and quickly made the trip up to the sixth floor. When the doors opened, she found Stella waiting there for her, a look of great concern on her face.

The sight of her friend caused Lindsay to start to cry, and she saw Stella step onto the elevator through blurry eyes and wrap her arms around Lindsay as she led her off the elevator and to her apartment. If Lindsay hadn't been such a mess, she probably would've tried to take in more of her surroundings, but she just let Stella lead her over to a couch, Stella crossing the room to grab a box of tissues before sitting down next to Lindsay. Lindsay took a couple of tissues and blew her nose before looking over at Stella.

"Thanks, Stel."

"Linds, what's going on here? Why are you over here wanting to talk to me instead of your husband?"

"We just got into a huge fight and I walked out. I couldn't deal with it. All I wanted to do was smack him across the face – he was accusing me of being a bad parent."

Shock and surprise crossed Stella's face. "Wait a second, that doesn't sound like Danny. What happened before that? It was your day off, right?"

"Yeah I took Lucy out for the day and he was all pissed off because I didn't have my cell phone on and he couldn't reach me. I just wanted to be left alone to clear my head, and he accused me of being stupid and reckless."

Stella sat in silence as she absorbed Lindsay's story. From what she was hearing, Danny had a right to be concerned about Lindsay not answering her cell phone and disappearing with Lucy for the day, but she wasn't about to tell Lindsay that at the moment. Stella had seen a marked change in Lindsay in the past week and a half, and she could see that especially in the last couple of shifts they had worked together, Lindsay was throwing herself into her work, likely trying to avoid dealing with what had happened with Shane Casey. Stella knew that if she tried to defend Danny right now, Lindsay would likely run off again, and there was no telling where she would go next. Instead, she decided to stall for a bit of time in order to decide what to do next.

"You sit here and relax. I'm going to get you some water and then we can talk about whatever you want to talk about, OK?" Lindsay nodded her head and leaned back into the couch as Stella disappeared from her view.

On the way to the kitchen, Stella quickly grabbed her cell phone. Opening up a text message window, she typed out a message:

_Danny, Lindsay showed up at my place. She's safe. I'm gonna try talking to her. – Stella_

Sending the message, Stella grabbed a bottle of water from her fridge and went back into her living room. She had opened her mouth, about to speak, when she saw that Lindsay had fallen asleep. Though it was just shortly after 9 pm, Lindsay looked drained not only from her argument with Danny but also from a general lack of sleep, so Stella decided not to wake her.

Stella shifted her into a semi-lying position, putting a pillow behind her head so she wouldn't have a sore neck and taking the blanket from the back of the couch and draping it over the younger woman. Turning off the light nearest to Lindsay, she made her way to her bedroom, deciding to go lie down herself and relax for a while.

* * *

_Lindsay found herself walking through her home on her way to Lucy's nursery, but something seemed completely wrong. Walking over to the crib, Lindsay tried to feel around for her daughter, surprised not to find her there given what appeared to be the late hour. Instead, Lindsay's hand came in contact with some sort of sticky liquid, and her heart stopped. Turning on the light next to the crib, Lindsay saw that the mattress was soaked in blood, an amount that she knew was too much for someone Lucy's size to lose and still survive._

_Stumbling out of the room in horror, she ran to her bedroom to find Danny, hoping that she would somehow find Lucy alive and well with him. She found him faced away from her on the bed, so she ran up to him and tried to wake him. "Danny…" The rest of her words died on her tongue as her hands came in contact with his skin – his ice cold skin. _

_Pushing him onto his back, Lindsay could see in the moonlight that he had been shot twice directly in the heart. His unseeing eyes bore into her and she backed away from his body in shock. Just then, an eerily familiar voice broke the silence, coming from a dark corner in the room._

"_He was supposed to be last, but he just wouldn't co-operate. It was him that was supposed to watch his entire family die, but alas, things change. Since my grudge was never with you, your death will be quick and painless. Goodbye Lindsay."_

_Lindsay saw the gun aim right for her heart, and as the first shot rang out, she screamed "NOOOO…"_

Instead of feeling the pain of a bullet ripping through her chest, Lindsay felt two hands grab her shoulders and begin to shake her. "Lindsay, wake up! You're safe!"

Lindsay's eyes flew open and the tears that had seemingly started before she woke up continued to fall. "Lindsay, you were muttering both Lucy and Danny's names, and then you said 'Shane Casey' right before you screamed 'NO!' and I woke you up."

"I was at home and I found Lucy's crib mattress soaked in blood, then I found Danny on our bed with two bullets through his heart, and then Casey said I was next and he aimed at my heart and pulled the trigger." Lindsay's tears intensified after reliving the nightmare, so Stella created a spot for herself on the couch and pulled Lindsay into her arms.

"Lindsay, it's not real. Casey's dead, so he can't come after you again. Danny and Lucy are safe, it was just a horrible nightmare."

Lindsay's body began to shake as the true weight of what had transpired between her and Danny finally set in. "This was all my fault. If I had just gone to him like I said I would, this wouldn't have happened. He has no idea where I am right now." Lindsay let her head fall into her hands as a fresh wave of tears overtook her.

"Lindsay, I already sent him a text telling him that you were with me. He knows you're safe." Lindsay nodded, but made no attempt to speak again. Stella realized that she would have to pry more information from Lindsay.

"Have you been having these nightmares for the past week, and not been telling Danny about them?" Lindsay nodded again. "Sweetie, why haven't you told him about what you've been dreaming, he could help you get over them."

"I've been trying to deal with it on my own because I thought I could stop them myself by willing myself not to have them, like I had been taught after my friends were murdered."

"Linds, it's obviously not been working for you. Have you ever thought that what worked for you as a teenager won't work so easily anymore because you're in a different place in your life? Maybe if you actually talked with Danny about these nightmares in addition to using the technique, it might work better for you."

Lindsay let out a frustrated sigh. "God, Stella, I've messed this up so much – I told Danny that I would come to him if I needed his help, but I just keeping pushing him away. What am I gonna do?"

"Well, first of all, you're going to stay here tonight and get a good night's sleep, then after your shift tomorrow, you're going home to talk with your husband and work all of this out – it's not beyond fixing. I'm gonna go grab you a pair of my sweatpants and then I'm getting you two sleeping pills."

"Stella, I…"

"There's no negotiating here. They're over the counter, so they're very mild. I used them after what happened with Frankie, and they helped a lot to just let me get some rest. Now, I use them only after particularly draining cases."

Stella disappeared into her room and reappeared quickly to toss Lindsay a pair of pants before going into her bathroom. Though Lindsay was hesitant about using sleeping pills, at this point she was desperate to sleep through the majority of the night again. She quickly changed into the sweatpants and made herself comfortable on the couch.

Stella came back with 2 small pills in her palm, which Lindsay popped into her mouth and swallowed with the water that Stella had left for her on the coffeetable. "You have the early shift like I do tomorrow. Do you need to go visit your place before we head into work together?"

"No, I have all the essentials in my locker – shampoo, toothpaste, stuff like that – so I'll shower at work. I also have an entire set of clothes at work – I learned after getting stuck dumpster diving a lot in my first year here."

"OK, so we're all set for work tomorrow. Are you gonna be able to handle seeing Danny at work tomorrow?" Stella knew he had a later shift, and that Lindsay and Danny would be overlapping each other for several hours.

"Yes, I'll be OK seeing him." Stella wasn't completely convinced, but she decided to let that go.

"Alright, well go to sleep Linds, it looks like you've got a long day ahead of you. Goodnight kiddo."

"Goodnight Stella, and thanks for everything."

"You're welcome."

Lindsay reached over and shut off the light next to her and curled up on Stella's couch. Within ten minutes, Lindsay was asleep. It was the first night in a while that she slept through the majority of the night without being woken up by a horrible nightmare.


	13. Chapter 13

The next morning, Lindsay woke up before Stella and she went into the kitchen to go start some coffee, just a small token of her appreciation for everything Stella had done for her. Grabbing her pants, she went into the bathroom and changed back into them. Taking a look at herself in the mirror, she could still see how tired she looked, despite getting almost a full night of sleep, so she splashed some water on her face before finishing up and heading back out to the kitchen. Seeing that the coffee had only just started dripping down, she rummaged through Stella's kitchen until she found two mugs, sugar, spoons and the milk carton from the fridge.

She heard shuffling coming from the direction of the bedroom, so she assumed that Stella was now awake. She turned towards the hallway and watched as Stella emerged from her bedroom and headed for the kitchen.

"Hey Lindsay, did you sleep OK?"

"Yeah I did, those sleeping pills really did the trick for me. Thanks."

Stella smiled. "Well, as I've already said, you're welcome. That coffee smells great, so I'm gonna have to get a cup of it after I get out of the shower and get dressed."

"Not a problem, I'll have one ready for you when you're done." Stella smiled again before heading in the direction of the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later, Stella came back to the kitchen and took the cup of coffee that Lindsay had prepared for her. Stella quickly finished her coffee and placed her mug in the sink. "Are you ready kiddo?"

"Yes, I am." Lindsay knew that the question from Stella had been loaded with multiple meanings, and she hoped that her answer covered all of them. Stella nodded, and the two women exited the apartment and headed down to Stella's Avalanche, parked not far from the front door to her apartment building.

* * *

They were about halfway to the lab when Stella's cell phone went off.

"Stella Bonasera."

"Hey Stella, where are you?"

Before answering, Stella looked over at Lindsay and mouthed the word 'Mac', letting Lindsay know who was calling.

"I'm halfway to the lab Mac. Do you need me to come straight to a scene?"

"Yes. I'm here with Flack and Hawkes, but I'm gonna send Hawkes back to the lab with the evidence to go process with Lindsay, so I'm gonna need another hand here. The scene's not far from the lab."

"Good. I'll just drop off my passenger and I'll meet you there. What's the address?"

Mac gave it to her, but before he could ask who her passenger was, Stella said "Bye Mac" and ended the call. Lindsay looked over at Stella and smiled in gratitude, to which Stella nodded before turning her full attention back to the road.

Stella dropped Lindsay off on the street in front of the lab, waving off Lindsay's attempt to thank her once again, and then pulled back out into traffic and continued onto the scene that Mac needed her at. Alone on the sidewalk, Lindsay glanced down at her watch and saw that she only had twenty minutes before her shift started, so she wasted no time in getting into the elevator and hopping on an elevator. She hurried into the locker room, glad that it was empty at the moment, and opened her locker and grabbed all the things she would need for a shower.

In record time, she was back out to her locker to grab the bag where she kept a full set of clothes before heading to the bathroom to get changed and dry her hair. Lindsay was ready to go with five minutes to spare, so she put everything back in her locker and sat down on one of the benches and turned on her phone for the first time in more than a day. She was fine after she listened to Danny's first message, but she barely kept it together after hearing his second message. She could hear his conflicting emotions clearly in the message, his anger giving way to worry and concern for both her and Lucy, and she was once again reminded of just how horrible she had been to him, and to Lucy as well, the past little while. Quickly swiping a hand underneath her eyes, she put her phone on her belt, closed her locker, and headed out of the locker room, more determined than ever to make things right with Danny.

* * *

It was an hour past the time that Danny was supposed to have started his shift, and she still hadn't seen him. She'd not left the lab today, so at first she figured that he could've been called out to a scene on the way in, but Lindsay had since accounted for everyone that was on shift today. She tried not to worry about it, but she suspected that he called in sick to not have to see her today.

Mac passed by the lab she was working in and he could see the worry on her face. Stella had been extremely coy about telling him what was going on, so he was only able to get out of Stella that Lindsay had stayed with her last night. Putting that information together with the conversation he had had with Danny two hours ago, he suspected that something pretty bad had transpired between them, and they currently weren't talking to one another. Though Mac wanted to stay out of whatever was going on between them, he also wanted Lindsay to remain focused on work, so he decided to help her out a bit. Pretending like he had only seen her at the last second, he backed up and stuck his head into the lab, catching Lindsay's attention.

"Is there something you needed Mac?"

"No. Danny called in earlier on to say that he wasn't feeling so good and that he wasn't coming into work today and that his mom was coming over to pick Lucy up and take her for the night. I just wanted to ask you to tell him to take care of himself and I hope you don't catch whatever he's got – I can't have the both of you getting sick." Lindsay nodded and Mac left, saying nothing more.

For a second, Lindsay flashed back to more than two years ago when she'd covered for Danny and Mac told her not to catch what Danny had. She'd always had a suspicion that Mac knew she was covering for him, but she'd never dared to ask him outright. After what had just happened, Lindsay was now sure that Mac knew then, and now, that they had been lying to him. She felt bad about the lies, but she was grateful that he didn't seem too mad about them, because otherwise he wouldn't have just come to her and told her the information she was looking for, even though he knew full well that something completely different was going on.

Feeling a huge weight lift off her, Lindsay refocused on her work.

* * *

After what seemed like the longest shift of her life, Lindsay finally clocked off and headed for the locker room to collect her things. She pulled out her cell phone and tried calling home, but unsurprisingly, Danny didn't answer. Ending that call, she dialled another familiar number and waited for it to pick up.

"Hello, Messer residence."

"Hi Maria, it's Lindsay. How are you?"

"Lindsay, I'm doing fine, but how are you doing sweetheart?" Maria Messer asked, full of concern for her daughter-in-law. She knew that both Danny and Lindsay were having a hard time coming to terms with what that man had done to them, and she just wanted to help in whatever way she could.

"Honestly, not so good. Danny and I are really in a bad place right now because I, well neither of us really are communicating well with each other."

"I had guessed that much based on the look on Danny's face when I went to go pick up Lucy. He wouldn't go into details about what was going on, but I could see how broken hearted he was over all of this – I can hear the same thing in your voice right now. He told me he needed some time to think, but I think both of you have done enough of that. It's time to act."

Lindsay smiled to herself. Ever since she had met Maria Messer, she'd quickly found out that Danny's mom was very good at reading people, even when she wasn't talking to them face to face, and she always seemed to know what to do next. "That's exactly what I'm planning on doing tonight. I was calling you to thank you for taking Lucy for the night, and I was gonna ask you to say goodnight to her for me."

"You don't have to thank me for taking my own granddaughter. And on the other thing, why don't you tell her yourself?" Lindsay heard movement in the background, and she heard Maria say "Someone wants to talk to you Lucy!"

"Hi Lucy, it's Mommy!"

Lindsay heard the little girl squeal on the other end of the phone. "Mama!"

"Hi baby girl, I've missed you so much! You have fun with Nona tonight and I'll see you tomorrow. I love you sweetheart. Goodnight Lucy."

"Bye-bye Mama." Lindsay heard what sounded like a kiss come over the phone, so she repeated it right back to Lucy before she heard Maria get back on the line.

"She's doing great Lindsay. Whatever's going on between you and Danny right now, you've shielded her from it, so don't worry about that. Now get off the phone with me and go talk with your husband."

Lindsay chuckled a little bit. "Yes, ma'am."

Maria laughed in return. "Alright. Good luck, to the both of you. I love you."

"I love you too Mom. Bye." Maria insisted on having Lindsay call her 'Mom', and Lindsay had never been more thankful to have been so easily accepted, and loved, by Danny's family, and especially by his mom.

"Bye, sweetheart."

Placing her phone back on her belt, Lindsay slammed her locker shut and started her journey back home.

* * *

She managed to catch only the end of the rush hour traffic, so she found herself back in front of her apartment door in a timely manner. Taking one last deep breath, she put the key in the lock and turned it, pushing the door open and walking in. Like last night, she was greeted by silence and darkness as she shut the door behind her. She turned on the lamp on the hallway table and saw that Danny wasn't in the living room. She was about to call out to him when he came walking down the hallway, pulling a wifebeater over his head and coming to stop across the apartment from her. Despite all the things that were going on between them at the moment, Lindsay couldn't help the flutter in her stomach caused by the sight of Danny in his standard wifebeater and sweatpants. Pushing that thought aside, she said "Hi."

"Hi." His tone came across as very flat. Silence overtook the room as Danny crossed his arms across his chest, waiting for Lindsay to speak. She got the hint and awkwardly pressed forward.

"I'm sorry about yesterday Danny, I really am. I shouldn't have walked out on you like that last night. I know you weren't accusing me of being a bad parent, and I feel horrible about throwing your mistake back in your face – I know how low that was of me."

She watched as he continued to stand there, saying nothing and looking as though he wasn't convinced by her apologies. "Look Danny, I know that I said I would come to you if I was having problems dealing with the whole Shane Casey scenario, but the reason why I didn't follow through was because I didn't think there was anything going on that I couldn't handle. I was in complete denial about how messed up I was, and still am. I realize now my mistakes, and I'm asking that you believe me when I say how sorry I am and how willing I am to open up and let you in."

"Why should I believe you? I _almost_ walked away, but you really _did_." He let out a frustrated sigh before continuing. "I think it may be best if we take some time away from each other, so we can figure out, individually, where we want to go from here."

"No!" Lindsay's reply came out a little more forced than she had expected. "That's not what I want!"

"I'm not sure you have any idea what you want at the moment Lindsay: you tell me one thing and then do another. It just seems like taking the time to think everything through will help us both consider our next move."

Lindsay started shaking her head. "We don't need more time to think Danny, that's been the problem. You thought that it would be best for me and Lucy if you left us. Last night, I thought that you were the cause behind a lot of my problems, so I walked out. We've both been thinking, and where the hell has it led us – we're farther apart that I think we've ever been, and you're making it sound like we're done." Lindsay let out a gasp as her brain finally caught up with her mouth, and she looked straight at Danny, tears threatening to fall.

"Is that what you want, for us to be done?"

Lindsay waited for an answer, but Danny only turned away from her. She took that and his continued silence as his answer. She wanted nothing more that to run out of the apartment again, but she knew that he deserved better than that. If he truly wanted out, even if she was willing to fight for them for the rest of her life, she was willing to honour his wish.

Lindsay felt the bile rising up into her throat, so she started to head for the bathroom, Danny still standing with his back to her. As she passed by him, she felt his hand wrap around her wrist, much more gently than it had the night before. "Danny, I need to go to the bathroom."

"No."

"Danny, please I…"

"That's not what I want."

Lindsay let the rest of her protest die on her tongue. "What did you say?"

"That's not what I want."

Lindsay pulled her hand away from Danny's, and she saw how he tensed up because of it. Instead of walking away like she had the night before, Lindsay gently placed both hands on Danny's shoulders and slowly turned him so they were face to face, tear-filled eyes meeting tear-filled eyes.

"That's not what I want either, but then why did you suggest it in the first place?"

"I thought maybe that's what you wanted. I've been so confused for the last day and a half. I knew there was something wrong with you, but I didn't want to push you because I figured you would run off if I did. Apparently, not pushing had the same effect. I didn't know how to get through to you , so I just let you walk away because it seemed like that's what you wanted, and if I couldn't do anything else for you, at least I could give you that."

"Yesterday, it seemed like I wanted that too, but today I know that that's not true. Today, I know that part of the solution to what's wrong with me involves you. I need your help and love to get me through this, just like you needed me. Without you, I'm not going to get better."

"But what about tomorrow, and then the next day, and the day after that? Will you feel differently then?" Danny was on the verge of pleading with her, absolutely desperate for an answer.

"I want to be able to tell you that I won't feel differently tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that, but that wouldn't be fair of me to promise you that. Instead, we should just take this one day at a time, and maybe in a while from now, we'll be able to make long-term promises to one another again."

Danny merely nodded, but she needed more of an answer than that from him. Ever so slowly, giving him the chance to back away if he so wished, Lindsay's hands came up to frame his face, ensuring that they were eye to eye and would remain so.

"Danny, I need to know if you are willing to help me get through this. If you're not, or if you're not sure, that's OK. I just don't want what I've said, or the fact that we're married, to make you feel obligated to do it. If this is going to be too much for you, I need you to tell me now."

Staring into her soul, Danny could see that she was giving him one last out, even though she was terrified that he would take it, because she didn't want to be a burden on him, very much like he didn't want to be a burden on her after he got shot. He needed to come up with a way of telling her in no uncertain terms that he wasn't taking the out and showing her how committed he was to helping her, and he found his inspiration in the sensation of cold metal pressed into his cheek.

He gently removed her left hand from his face and placed it on her right forearm, and then he brought his left hand up and rested it partially on her hand, keeping both their wedding rings in view. "These rings, they're not obligations, they're commitments, they're 'long-term promises' to borrow your wording. I honestly don't know if this is going to be too much for me, but I'm determined not to give up even if it is. I need to help you get through this not because you did the same for me but because you're my wife, because I love you with all of my heart, and because your pain is my pain. We both carry the weight of it together, and we need to work together to make it go away."

Lindsay started crying again, so Danny used his free hand to brush her tears away. When she stopped, she spoke. "Can we sit down for a while? I have a lot of things that I need to tell you."

"Sure."

Taking his hand in hers, Lindsay walked them over to the couch and they sat down together. Her nerves started to set in at the prospect of reliving her nightmares, and she could feel her hands beginning to tremble. She took a moment to try and calm herself, but that didn't seem to be working either. It was only when Danny threaded their fingers together and firmly squeezed her hand that she found the courage to press on through her fears.

She started at the beginning with the nightmares that looked like instant replays and then moved on to the ones where either he or she was killed in the bar and the nightmares where the situations were otherwise pleasant, until Shane Casey showed up.

Then Lindsay got to the events of the previous day. She really wanted to stop there, knowing that admitting what had gone through her mind yesterday would be really painful, but also knowing that Danny deserved nothing less than the truth.

"I didn't sleep much the night before last because I had a nightmare where Shane Casey somehow got into the lab and came straight for the two of us. He managed to find us both working on paperwork in our office. He shot me in the heart and before you could even do anything, he shot you in the head. He somehow got out before anyone could catch him, and we were both dead, still sitting at our desks. Then the image changed and I saw Lucy, probably at the age of five or six, standing with the entire team and your parents, looking down at our side by side gravestones.

"I woke up then, and I didn't dare go back to sleep. I pretended to be asleep when you left, and after you were gone, I decided that what I needed was a day out in the public where nobody knew who I was and I could just be another mom out with her child, and not the woman who'd been kidnapped and almost killed by a psychopath. That's why I left my phone off: if I took any calls yesterday, especially from you, it would have ruined the fantasy I had created.

"Lucy ended up having so much fun yesterday, I think she was just happy to be doing and seeing different things, she didn't make a fuss at all, and it lulled me into a false sense of security that what I did was fine. I guess in the back of my mind, I knew that you would be worried about where we were, but I just pushed it aside, convincing myself that I needed to look out for my own interests. When I came back and you tried to confront me on what I was doing, I was trying to stop you from getting me to open up, and that's why I ended up jumping to conclusions and saying awful things to you. I told myself that you were the one with the problems, not me."

Lindsay stopped here to catch her breath and then she went on to tell Danny about her night at Stella's. She completely broke down after detailing for him her last nightmare, and for the first time in several days, Lindsay allowed Danny to take her into his arms and hold her close, soothing her pain away. When she had calmed down enough, she finished her story, telling Danny about what had happened after her dream, concluding with everything that had happened to her earlier in the day right up until she stepped through their apartment door.

Finally at the end of her confessions, she let out a sigh of relief and she felt Danny tighten his arms around her once more. "Thank you for listening to me Danny, and for not judging me. I know that some of what I said was probably hard to hear, but I couldn't sugarcoat it. You needed me to be completely honest with you, and I needed to be completely honest with myself as well. And I owed you."

"What did you owe me for?" Danny asked, more than a little perplexed.

"I owe you for taking me back, even though I'm a wreck."

"You're a wreck? Do you so easily forget how I was several weeks ago?"

"No, but you're right: you _almost_ walked away, but I _did_."

"Lindsay, you came back, and you did it because you wanted to. That makes all the difference to me." Lindsay didn't look so convinced, so he tried another tactic. "If it means so much to you, we're even now. You took me back and I took you back, so let's not keep score anymore, OK?"

"OK." She gave him a small smile. "I'm gonna head to the bathroom, and then I'm gonna grab some clothes and a pillow and a blanket."

"Why?" For the second time in less than three minutes, Danny was confused.

"Because I'm sleeping on the couch tonight."

"No you're not, you slept on a couch last night. You're sleeping on a bed tonight."

"Danny, I'm not letting you and your bad back sleep on the couch for a night."

"And neither am I. We're both sleeping on our bed."

Lindsay started to protest. "While we have covered a lot of ground tonight, we're far from completely fixed, Dan."

"I know Linds, but we're taking things one day at a time, right? Well, I can't speak for tomorrow or the day after, but tonight, I want you to sleep exactly where you should be, and that's right next to me. And I won't accept any other answer than 'Yes'."

Lindsay stared at him, a little shocked by how adamant that he was that they both sleep in the same bed. It wasn't that she didn't want to sleep next to him, because that's exactly what she wanted to do, but she wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. Since he thought it was, she wasn't about to keep questioning him. "You know, you can be real stubborn sometimes, but I still love you with everything I've got."

She surprised herself with how easily she slipped back into teasing him, and though she was unsure of how he would take it at first, she watched Danny smile at her for the first time in a while, and it warmed her right to the core. Disentangling herself from her husband, Lindsay got up to head for the bathroom, leaving Danny to turn off the lights in the apartment and double-check the door. By the time he was finished, she had re-emerged from the bathroom ready for bed. Walking in together, they climbed under the covers at the same time and tentatively met in the middle of the bed, near enough to touch each other easily, but refraining from doing so, at least for the moment. Looking into his eyes, Lindsay spoke.

"Danny, I'm afraid to go to sleep. I've had nightmares every night for close to two weeks, and the technique of willing myself not to have them isn't working."

"You've talked about those old dreams, they don't have any power to scare you anymore, and if you have another one, tell me about it and it'll go away."

"I'm still scared though."

"Linds, do you trust me?"

Without thinking, Lindsay replied "Yes."

"OK, then we're gonna take your technique day by day too. Sometimes it may work, but sometimes it may no, but you can't be afraid not to go to sleep because of that. We're gonna try it again today, and if it doesn't work, you'll tell me about your dream and we'll try again tomorrow." Lindsay nodded her agreement.

"OK, here goes: Lindsay, you are not going to have any nightmares tonight." To seal the deal, Danny captured her lips in a short, loving kiss, something that completely took Lindsay by surprise. He then pulled her closer to him and wrapped his arms around her, telling her to close her eyes and go to sleep. Danny waited until he was sure that she was asleep before he closed his eyes and joined her in slumber.

It was the first time in many nights that Lindsay did not have a single nightmare.

* * *

**Up next: the epilogue! It's gonna be set a few months after this last chapter, but I plan giving at least a little bit of information about what happened in between. I'm still hoping to finish this up before the finale on Wednesday, and barring anything happening, I should be right on track.**

**Until then, thanks for reading!**


	14. Epilogue

**Here it is: the final instalment of Aftermath! *tear* It's like T-minus a couple of hours to the finale where I am, and I'm trying not to freak out, but it's not going so well. *reaches for brown paper bag to breathe into***

**Anywho, I want to thank everyone who has kept coming back to this story to see how it unfolded – it means a lot to me. I also want to sent a special thank you to afrozenheart412, Lindsay1234, uscrocks, and conche - you guys have been reviewing since day one, and have continued to do so, even though you've heard nothing back from me. I wanted to let you guys know that I have read your comments and I really appreciate them. I will be replying soon, but I just wanted to thank you ahead of time. *hugs***

**Just for your information, the section in italics covers the period between the end of the previous chapter and where the epilogue picks up.**

**One last time: I own nothing but my mistakes, so I seriously hope that nobody tries to sue me.**

**Please enjoy the epilogue to Aftermath!**

* * *

_It had been close to six months since Shane Casey had taken Lindsay and nearly destroyed Danny in the process, and both Danny and Lindsay had come a long way in that time. From the night when Lindsay came home and they talked onwards, they continued to take their recoveries, both as individuals and as a couple, one day at a time, and though it wasn't always easy, Danny and Lindsay had grown more in their relationship._

_Each night, Danny continued to tell Lindsay that she would not have a nightmare that night and kiss her to complete the ritual, and it tended to work more often than not, but sometimes the nightmares were more powerful that the combined wills of Danny and Lindsay. Both discovered that their individual issues could be triggered by the types of cases they worked on. In Lindsay's case, her trigger was not any one particular type of case, so she was never sure of what would send her over the edge until she went to sleep at night and the nightmares came back. She found that they had toned down somewhat in subject matter, but each still involved Shane Casey coming after her, Danny and Lucy. She had started to wake herself up earlier in the dreams, so she wouldn't get to the part where Casey succeeded in hurting someone she cared for the most, but she'd had enough nightmares to be able to guess how each new one would've ended._

_Whenever she was awoken by a nightmare, she would automatically turn to Danny and want to talk to him about it. Since she no longer woke up crying, Lindsay always expected to have to wake him up, but each time she found that he was already awake, ready to listen to what she had been dreaming about and to tell her that it wasn't even possible anymore because Shane Casey was dead and not able to come after them or Lucy. The return of her nightmares usually only lasted for as long as she was working on the case, so Danny went out of his way every time he saw her during those cases to remind her that she was going to be OK and that he wasn't going anywhere on her, gestures that she really appreciated. _

_In that six month period, Danny had worked cases that involved people murdered by their significant others. Every time, no matter what the circumstances of the cases were, Danny felt himself flash back to his freak-out in the interrogation room, and he felt the thoughts of his family being better off without him try to take hold once again in his mind, When it happened, he immediately sought out Lindsay, whether in person or over the phone, to tell her that he loved her and that he wouldn't leave her. Lindsay automatically understood that him getting in contact with her meant that he was having a really hard time dealing with his feelings, so she would remind him that she loved him just as much, that she knew he wasn't going anywhere, and reassured him that he was strong enough to finish the case because she was ready to support him when he needed her most._

_To outsiders, these gestures and words may have seemed simple, but to Danny and Lindsay, with everything they had been through together, they were priceless lifelines that reminded them that they were never alone in what they were feeling._

* * *

_Probably the hardest couple of days that Danny and Lindsay had to survive through in the whole six month period were the three days when Mac was at a conference in Philadelphia and Hawkes had come down with a nasty bout of the flu at the same time. Hawkes had offered to still come into work given that they were already short a CSI, but Stella, in charge with Mac gone, refused to let him anywhere near the lab for fear that someone else would catch what he had. To pick up the slack, Adam went into the field more often to help with evidence collection, and he, Stella, Danny and Lindsay were all pulling double shifts. Stella had tried to make it a little easier on the young couple by scheduling them so that one of them was able to watch Lucy for a significant chunk of the day while the other one was at work, allowing Stella to be only down one available CSI at a time, but the arrangement also meant that Danny and Lindsay barely saw each other, either passing each other at work as one came on shift and the other went home or coming home or leaving for work while the other one was asleep. The arrangement was anything but ideal, but they made it through the first day. _

_The second day got exponentially worse, as the case they'd caught at the beginning of Lindsay's shift involved a young couple being murdered, leaving their two young children orphans. It managed to set both Danny and Lindsay off, and though Stella would have loved to not have the two of them working on a case that hit way too close to home, she had no choice but to keep them on it. Danny was managing his feelings about the case by channelling them into solving it, but Lindsay was not having any success at putting her thoughts and feelings aside, and without the chance to talk properly to Danny about them, she was struggling. To add insult to injury, the case seemed too similar to her nightmare where both of them were murdered in their office, and remembering all too well the events of the two following days, she was desperate to avoid repeating her mistakes. _

_Lindsay just wanted the case to be over, and so did Danny. _

_That first night, she went home to relieve their babysitter, and she was OK while she had Lucy near her to distract her from what was going on. After she had put her daughter to sleep, Lindsay dragged herself off to bed, knowing what would happen to her the minute she closed her eyes, but also knowing that she couldn't be afraid to go to sleep. She managed to last a couple of hours before a nightmare hit her, and when she woke up, she instinctively reached out for Danny, forgetting for a moment that he would still be at work for a couple of hours. As she started to cry, she reached out for Danny's pillow and wrapped herself around it, trying to take solace in his scent until she could have the real thing comfort her._

_He came home several hours later absolutely exhausted and he made a beeline for their bedroom, needing to crash. He found Lindsay curled around his pillow and he knew right away that she had had a nightmare, and his heart broke for her. He quickly stripped down and threw on a pair of sweatpants before climbing into bed and pulling her into his arms. Having unintentionally fallen back into a restless sleep, Lindsay woke up the second that she felt the bed dip under his weight and she started to cry again, discarding his pillow and instead clinging to the real thing. He listened as she told him about her nightmare and he felt her calm down somewhat after unburdening herself. She asked if they managed to close the case, and she could hear the sorrow in his voice as he had to tell her that it was still open. She wanted to talk more to him, but she could see that he was already fighting to stay awake, so she kissed him sweetly and told him to go to sleep. He was asleep not long after, but sleep was much more elusive for Lindsay. When she was finally drifted off, it felt like it had only been ten minutes before the alarm went off to wake her up for her shift. Danny had only been home for three hours, so she let him sleep and went to work._

_Her shift on that third day ended up being one that seemed to go on forever, and when she next saw her husband, they had a likely suspect but couldn't track him down. This guy was no stranger to the legal system, but Lindsay was angry after she learned that he'd managed to get off on his last charge, a murder wrap, on a technicality. She couldn't help but think that if someone hadn't screwed up the last time, two little kids wouldn't be orphans at the moment. She started to cry when Danny came into the room to tell her that they had finally managed to track down the suspect. He could see that she was upset, but he knew he didn't have the time to comfort her, so he reached for her hand and squeezed it firmly, mouthing "I'm sorry" before running to the elevator to catch up with Flack and the rest of the cops that were going._

_She finished her shift an hour later without hearing anymore about the case, and as she returned home once again with her husband hours away from coming home, she couldn't help her frustration not only with the case, but also the situation they were stuck in. She knew that things would get better with Mac returning tomorrow, and Hawkes hopefully returning within a couple of days, but she was exhausted and at the end of her emotional tether. Lindsay didn't bother going to bed after Lucy was asleep, not wanting to risk having another nightmare without Danny there. Instead, she sat down on the couch and aimlessly flipped through the TV channels, using the noise to block out her thoughts._

_When Danny came home a couple of hours earlier than expected, he found her still sitting on the couch, having dozed off there while watching the TV. He assumed that she was waiting up for him, so he quietly made his way over to her and shut the TV off before leaning down and trying to kiss her awake. Her eyes fluttered open and at first she was sure that she was dreaming, but when he reached down to pick her up and carry her to their bedroom, she realized that he was really there. Placed gently down onto the bed and now fully alert, Lindsay listened as Danny told her that the case was closed and they had gotten the suspect to confess. She let out a sigh of relief at that, but she was even happier to hear that both she and Danny were getting later shifts the next day in recognition of their hard work, despite the circumstances. Lindsay was worried at first that their reward would put an excessive strain on the lab, but she was OK with it when she learned that Mac had arrived hours ahead of schedule and Hawkes was over the flu. Finally able to have some quality time together, Danny and Lindsay spent the next hour expressing what the case had brought up within them before seeking the comfort they found in each other's arms and finally getting the rest they both desperately needed._

* * *

Danny found himself thinking about that particular case when he was called into Mac's office at the end of his shift. He was worried as he entered the office, but he left it feeling great. Danny had some great news he wanted to share with Lindsay right away, but he decided that it would be best to make a special event of it, because after two weeks of hard thinking, it seemed like the right time to bring up another subject with her. He hurried home and whipped together a quick pasta dish that he loved as a kid. As Lucy was already spending the day with her grandparents, Danny called his mom to ask if she could keep Lucy for the night, an idea that Maria Messer was more than on board with when she heard what her son was planning for his wife. Getting off the phone with his mom, he cleaned up their home, and himself, before he anxiously waiting for Lindsay to come home.

When Lindsay finally walked through the door, she had planned on spending a quiet evening with her husband and daughter, so she was surprised to not see or hear Lucy anywhere, instead seeing a candlelit dinner for two waiting for them on their dining room table. Lindsay was about to call out to Danny when he appeared in the kitchen doorway, a bright smile lighting up his entire face.

"Hey Montana."

"Hello yourself. What is all this for?" she asked, gesturing towards the table.

"My mom's keeping Lucy for the night, so I thought we could have a dinner date. I've got some news I want to share with you, but we'll leave that until after dinner." Lindsay was more than a little intrigued about the news he had to share with her, but she forgot about that the moment Danny walked over to her, kissed her sweetly, and then took her by the hand over to her seat. Once she was seated, Danny sat down beside her and uncovered their plates, and they started to eat in silence, keeping a connection between them either through looks or by brushing their hands together. When they were both finished eating, Danny quickly cleared the dishes from the table and went to load the dishwasher as quickly as possible, eager to return to his wife and share his news. He found her fiddling with her napkin and the smile he saw on her face told him that tonight was the right time to share with her what he had been thinking about for the past two weeks.

Sitting down again, he reached for her hand and watched as her eyes locked with his, once again intrigued about what he needed to say to her. "I got called into Mac's office at the end of my shift today, and he told me that I'm back on the promotion scale," he stated plainly, beaming at her. She leaned forward to wrap her arms around him, and he returned the hug just as tightly.

"That's great Danny, I'm so happy for you." She knew that it meant a lot to him, so she was ecstatic for him.

"I know, so am I." He paused and took a deep breath before continuing. "Now, there's something else that I want to tell you, but I need you to close your eyes and bear with me for a minute, OK?"

Lindsay nodded and closed her eyes, taking her right hand and using it to cover her eyes to show Danny that she would not peek. Danny promptly removed his wedding band and placed it on the table beside her before he lowered himself from his chair to take a knee on the floor in front of her. Reaching for her left hand, he started to remove her engagement ring and wedding band.

"Danny, what are you doing?"

"Just keep your eyes closed. You'll see in a second." Lindsay didn't want to listen to him, desperate to know why she was now ringless, but she trusted Danny and knew that there was a reason behind whatever he was doing.

Putting her wedding band down on the table next to his, he held onto her engagement ring and hoped to hell that he didn't screw this up.

"OK Lindsay, you can open your eyes now." He watched as her hand peeled away from her face and her eyes blinked several times, unsure if what she was seeing was real. When the initial shock wore off after a few seconds, Lindsay's right hand returned to her face, this time covering her gaping mouth, as tears streamed down her face. She couldn't believe what she was seeing: Danny was down on one knee, holding her engagement ring firmly between two fingers. It took Lindsay a minute to calm down enough to pull her hand from her mouth and actually form words. "Danny, what…"

The rest of her question was silenced as Danny reached forward with his free hand and placed a finger to her lips. It was then that Lindsay saw that Danny had removed his wedding band as well. Her heart began to race as her brain began to process what was going on.

"These past six months have been really hard on the both of us, as individuals and as a couple. There were times when it seemed like you and I were never going to rise above all the crap that life had decided to throw at us. It took us both some time to realize that shutting down and running away was not going to help us move forward after what happened, but we eventually figured it out in the end. We didn't know how to move forward, so we decided that we should take life one day at a time until the time came when we were ready to make long-term promises to each other again. Taking things day by day, we had to choose on a daily basis to trust each other, and that's exactly what we did. I think that's the most important thing we learned in the last six months: to trust each other and rely on each other through the good and the bad stuff. It wasn't easy, but we've made it through.

"For the past little while, I've been wondering whether we were ready to move forward and return to our life before all of this happened. Surviving through those three days of hell by leaning on each other whenever we could, I felt that we were ready, and I hope you do too." Danny saw Lindsay give him a slight nod, and he smiled. "Now, since we agree that we're ready to go back to making long-term promises, I think that there's one that's more important than all the rest and it needs to be addressed first, so I have a question that I need to ask you." Danny paused to take a breath, and he found that he was more nervous than he had ever been in his life. As tears started to form in his eyes, he got to the most important part of his little speech.

"I know I'm not always the easiest person to love, but you are my once-in-a-lifetime chance at true love and happiness. You bring out the best in me every single day, and I can only hope that I do the same for you. You are the most beautiful person that I know, both inside and out, and I would be honoured and forever grateful if you decided to spend the rest of your life with me. Lindsay Messer, will you marry me?"

Lindsay had slowly been losing her composure ever since her eyes reopened, so by the time he asked her to marry him, she was beyond the ability to speak. She never thought that he could've topped the way he had proposed to her the first time, no matter how unconventional it may seem to anybody else, but she knew that he had just done it. She was trying to recollect herself enough to answer him, but it was proving to be a difficult task.

"Lindsay, are you alright?" She nodded her head and it took her another minute or two to answer his question in the best way she knew how:

"I can't marry you Danny, because I'm already married to my soulmate."

She watched as he started to gawk at her, and she couldn't help the wide grin that overtook her face and the giggle that escaped her lips, even as her tears continued to fall. She had been feeling that they were close to being back to normal, and the fact that her first instinct, even in a serious moment, was to lightly tease him, told her that they were ready.

He got up from his knee and sat down once again on his chair, now chuckling to himself.

"You're a real wiseass, you know that?" She could hear in his voice that he was teasing her back. "Here I am, asking you a serious question, and you're…" Danny had looked down for a second while he was speaking, so he never saw Lindsay lunge forward and attack him, throwing herself into his lap before she glued her lips to his. His body reacted faster that his brain did, so he was kissing her back for a while before his brain understood that she was on top of him.

They continued their kiss until both were starving for oxygen. Pulling away only slightly, they were both panting, but Lindsay managed to huff out "You should take that as a 'Yes' to your question." He started laughing, but it sounded more like he was choking because he was still so out of breath.

They sat in silence for several minutes trying to recover, still clinging to one another. Danny was the first to make a move, and he placed her engagement ring down on the table and picked up her wedding band. Removing her left hand from the back of his neck, he brought it between them and held it in his own hand, running his thumb back and forth over it.

"I, Danny Messer, take you, Lindsay Messer, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part."

He started to choke up at the end, thinking about how much more those vows seemed to mean after what had happened to them since the first time they had said them to one another. He slid the band onto her finger, then picked up her engagement ring and placed it over top, and after seeing those two rings back in their rightful place, Danny was never more proud to call Lindsay his wife.

Lindsay reached back and picked up his wedding band in a trembling hand, feeling the weight of it in her hand. There had been a brief time when she thought that he didn't want to wear it anymore, but seeing his face and the way he was looking at her, she knew that that assumption could not have been any farther from the truth. Taking his left hand and holding it between them, she began to repeat the words that had been burned into her memory more than a year earlier.

"I, Lindsay Messer, take you, Danny Messer, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part." She slid his wedding band back into place, and then whispered the final two words of their vows: "I do."

He quickly echoed his own "I do" before bringing his hands up to frame her face and pulling her face down to his to seal their union once more. There was no urgency in their kiss, as they passionately explored each other's mouths in a way that they had not done in a very long time. As the kiss continued, Lindsay felt a wave of desire come crashing down on her, and she pulled away from Danny, a mischievous look on her face.

Danny opened his eyes to see why Lindsay had pulled away from him, and he could see a plan forming in her mind, and he had a strong feeling that he was going to love where this was going.

"Lucy's staying with your mom for the whole night, right?" Danny nodded his head and unconsciously licked his lips, certain he knew what she was building up to. "Why don't we go celebrate our remarriage properly, since we have the place all to ourselves? I seem to remember that the last time we did this, I had to finish packing for my trip to Montana the next morning, and I was close to seven and a half months pregnant at the time."

She saw her own desire reflected back at her from his eyes, so she knew that he was game. Still, she waited for him to say something, but Danny only turned toward the centre of the table and blew out the candles. No longer able to see her husband, Lindsay was taken by surprise when he attacked her mouth with his own and she felt him slowly stand up from the chair. She adjusted her legs so that they were locked around his waist and snaked one arm around his neck while the other started to undo the buttons of his shirt and his pants. They continued to fight for dominance in the kiss as they stumbled back towards their bedroom, leaving a trail of clothes in their wake.

There were _definitely_ no nightmares for either of them that night.

* * *

**Wow, I can't believe that I actually made it to the end of this story, or that I actually managed to finish it before the finale airs!**

**Once again, I want to thank everyone who has EVER read this story, even if you stopped reading it long ago because you hated it (I know you're not seeing this, but I'm just putting it out there). You guys are all awesome in my books!**

**Happy finale watching everyone! Bye for now!**


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